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ANSWERS 


3 z - . 

/ / 


OF 




EX-GOV. POEK 

u 


5 


TO TWO SERIES OF INTERROGATORIES PROPOUND- 
ED TO HIM AND GOV. JONES, THROUGH 
THE PRESSES OF MEMPHIS; 


TOGETHER WITH A 


LETTER, 

TO THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE, 

DISCLOSING HIS VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE 
PUBLIC EXPENDITURES, THE PUBLIC DEBT, THE 
TARIFF, AND BANK OF THE UNITED STATES; 
WRITTEN IN PURSUANCE OF AN AGREEMENT 
BETWEEN HIMSELF AND GOV. JONES, ENTERED 
INTO DURING THE PRESENT CANVASS. 



1843. 





y q U 2 - 


GOV. POLK’S ANSWERS. 


Columbia, May 15, 1843. 

To H. Van Pelt, Esq., Editor of the Appeal: 

Sir : —At the earliest moment of leisure 
which I have had, since I received, through 
the Memphis papers, the two series of inter¬ 
rogatories propounded to me by a portion of 
my fellow citizens of Shelby county, I have 
prepared my answers, and herewith trans¬ 
mit them to you, that they may be published 
through the same papers which conveyed to 
me the interrogatories. 

I am very respectfully, 

Your'Gb’dt servh, 
JAMES K. POLK. 

To Messrs. G. Wo Smith, R. E. Titus , C. 

Stewart, and others: 

Gentlesien : My attention has been call¬ 
ed to the interrogatories—addressed by 
yourselves and others—to Gov. Jones and 
myself through the columns of the Memphis 
Appeal—and I respectfully submit to you 
and through you to tiie public my response: 

Your first interrogatory is as follows: 

1st. Are you for or against the first Bank 
Charter passed at the extra session of the late 
Congress commonly called Clay's Bill —which was 
vetoecfby Mr. Tyler ? 

I answer that I am “against the fifst Bank 
Charter passed at the Extra Session of the 
late Congress, commonly called Claifs Bill, 
which was vetoed by Mr. Tyler.” In a 
speech delivered at Pulaski on the 29th of 
September last, and which was afterwards 
published in some of the newspapers, I sta¬ 
ted the character of the Bank which was 
proposed to be established by that Bill. I 
beg leave to refer you to the following ex¬ 
tract from that speech, to wit: 

“The time was, and but a few years ago, when 
the avowed bank party in this state was exceed¬ 
ingly small. All the prominent and leading men 
of the party who were now its advocates, inclu¬ 
ding members of Congress, members of the Legis¬ 
lature, and others, were opposed to a National 
Bank. They supported with grea t unamity Gen¬ 


eral Jackson’s Veto of the Bank bill in 1832. 
They supported Judge White and this same Mr. 
Tyler for the Presidency and Vice Presidency in i 
1836, with their known and publicly avowed o- 
pinions against an incorporated National Bank 
of any kind. They had since that time changed 
their opinions. That, certainly they had a right 
to do; but it came with an ill grace from Ihem to 
censure those who had not changed with them— 
one of the greatest difficulties which the oppo¬ 
nents of a bank had had to encounter in this 
State, had been in meeting the vague generali¬ 
ties in which the Bank advocates had dealt. They 
all, with perhaps rare exceptions, professed to con¬ 
demn and oppose the late bank of the United 
States, or any other bank organized on similar 
principles. They would say, we are opposed to 
the old Bank, but we are in favor of a new Bank, 
with suitable restrictions and modifications. 
What these modifications and restrictions w^ere 
they would not specify. They talked of them in 
general and vague terms, but their plans of a 
Bank they did not and would not give. Some, to 
be sure, had in their minds an uncertain and un¬ 
defined notion of the plan of a bank with which 
they would be pleased, such as that there should 
be no private stockholders, and that it should be 
owned by the General Government and the States. 
Many honest men had been made to think that 
a proper sort of bank might be framed that might 
be useful. He said he regarded it as fortunate in 
the future discussions of the subject that the par¬ 
ty advocating a Bank, in this state at least, had 
at length been driven from their vague generali¬ 
ties. They have brought in and passed a bank 
charter at the extra Session of Congress. Mr. 
Clay was its author—President Tyler vetoed it, 
and because he had done so, they had denounced 
him as a traitor, and had burnt and hung him in 
effigy. If President Tvler had signed that bill 
they said the whole scheme of Federal measures 
would have been complete. That bill, then w r e 
must presume, contained their plan of a Bank, 
and to get it they were now prepared to elect 
Henry Clay President of the United States.” 

“Now, what was that bill, and w^hat was the 
kind of bank which they promised by it to the ■ 
country if they continued another Presidential 
term in power? A slight inspection of its provis¬ 
ions would show that it was an old fashioned in- \ 
corporated Stock Bank, to be owned in part and 
in fact controlled by private stockholders, retain¬ 
ing all the bad features of the late bank and em¬ 
bracing others that made it even more objectiona- , 
ble than that bank, bad as it was.—Its capital 
stock was to be thirty millions of Dollars, with , 
power reserved to increase it to 50 millions after j 
the year 1850. One third of the capital stock, or 
Ten Millions of Dollars, was to be subscribed for ,1 


i 




3 


by the United States, and two thirds or - Twenty | 
millions of dollars, was to be subscribed for by in* 
dividuals, companies, corporations, or States. The 
Ten millions of dollars to be subscribed by the U- 
nited States, was to be raised by borrowing the 
money. A public debt of Ten Millions of dollars 
was by the charter authorised to be created, and 
for that purpose a public stock of the United States 
was to be issued, bearing interest at the rate of 
five per centum per annum, which was not to be 
paid until after the expiration of fifteen years. 
This loan must most probably, he might safely 
say, certainly have been made from freigners. 
Thus presenting a nation of seventeen millions of 
freemen in the humiliating, if not degrading atti¬ 
tude of borrowing money on interest from foreign¬ 
ers to make a bank upon.—The interest on the 
loan which was to be paid half yearly, was five 
hundred thousand dollars a year, and would have 
amounted for the fifteen years (sooner than the 
expiration of which it could not be redeemed) to 
seven millions five hundred thousand dollars. 
The Bank was to be located at Washington City, 
and was to be governed by nine directors, three 
of whom were to be appointed by the United 
States, and six by the private stockholders. All 
know that six would control three—so that the 
bank itself would in fact have been under the ab¬ 
solute control of the private stockholders. Indeed 
this seemed to have been designed by the charter 
itself—for it was provided that “not less than five 
directors shall constitute a board for the transac¬ 
tion of business, of whom the President shall al¬ 
ways be one, and at least three of the five shall 
be of the directors elected by the stockholders.” 
This provision made it absolutely impossible even 
in a thin board, for the three Government direc¬ 
tors in any possible case, to constitute a majority. 
The principle board were empowered to appoint 
the directors or managers of the branches. The 
public monies were directed to be deposited with- 
the bank, and as a considerable amount of it 
would necessarily be always on hand, it would be 
used and traded upon as banking capital. The 
taxes paid by the people for the support of Gov¬ 
ernment would constitute a part of the banking 
capital, to be loaned out, and upon which the pri¬ 
vate stockholders would make proffit. This was 
the outline of Mr. Clay’s Bank Bill which Presi¬ 
dent Tyler vetoed. He had searched in vain 
through its provisions for those restrictions and 
limitations which were so often and so vaguely 
spoken of, and which were to prevent it from run¬ 
ning into all the corruptions and abuses of the 
late Bank of the United States. The United 
States was made by this charter to go into partner¬ 
ship with the private stockholders, to place all the 
revenues in the concern, and was yet placed in a 
minority in the directory, and was therefore de¬ 
prived of all power or control over them. Who 
would probably have become the private stockhol¬ 
ders in such a bank? In the West and South, 
where there was but little surplus capital, and 
where money, bore high rates of interest, but lit¬ 
tle if any would have been taken. Scarcely a 
share of the stock of the late Bank of the United 
States was at any time owned in Tennessee. 
There could be no doubt that much the lavgor por- 


tion of it would have either been taken at first cur 
been ultimately owned by the Federalists of the- 
northern and eastern sections of the Union, who. 
were the largest capitalists of the country. This 
was the case with the old Bank. And though 
stock could not be taken directly by foreigners, 
there was no doubt but that much of it would 
have been ultimately held by them under cover of- 
secret trusts in the name of others. He could 
have no doubt that if it had been established it. 
would have soon become an immense political en¬ 
gine of deadly hostility to the purity of elections, 
and to the liberties of the people, and would have 
been wielded by a corrupt faction, as was the 
late Bank of the United States, and for the worst 
of purposes. The thanks of the country, he had 
no hesitation in saying, were due to Mr. Tyler- 
for having arrested it as he did hy his Veto. 

“Was this the kind of Bank which the body of' 
the party in this State wanted. He thought he 
could answer with certainty that it was not. And 
yet this was Mr. Clay’s Bank, and to get it, they 
were now told by leeding public men and newspa¬ 
pers, they must vote for him to be President of- 
the United States. He did not deem it necessa¬ 
ry, and if he did, time would not allow him to 
enter upon the general discussion of the Bank 
question and the currency on that occasion. Ho 
would only add that neither a National Bank or 
any other Bank could prevent commercial re¬ 
vulsions or furnish a remedy against hard times. 
When we had-a National Bank we had witnessed 
such times, and when we had none we had wit¬ 
nessed them.” 

Your second interrogatory is as follows, 
to wit: 

2d. Are you in favor of restoring the princi¬ 
ples of the Compromise Tariff Bill of 1833. 

I answer, that I am. 

Ycur third interrogatory is as-follows: to- 
wit: 

3d. Do you approbate the course of the Whig 
nominees for the Senate of the United States at 
the last regular Session of the General Assembly, 
to wit: E. H. Foster and S. Jarnagin, in refusing 
to declare their opinion upon the subject of the 
Bankrupt Law, and other subjects, and the right 
of instruction when called upon by one branch of 
the elective power? 

I answer that I cannot approve the “course 
of the Whig nominees for the Senate of the 
United States, at the last regular session of 
the General Assembly’’ or of any other as¬ 
pirant or candidate for public station, in. re¬ 
fusing to declare their opinions freely and 
without, reserve, upon all public subjects, up¬ 
on which they may be interrogated by a por¬ 
tion of the constituent body.. The right of 
instruction by the constituent- body to the 
Representative or public agent, and the du¬ 
ty of the latter to obey in good faith or re¬ 
sign, is one of the cardinal principles, held. 








by the political party of which I am a mem¬ 
ber. Destroy this principle, or permit the 
candidate for office by his silence to evade 
it, and be thereby at liberty to act as he 
pleases, after he is elected, is to place the 
servant above his master. No man in my 
opinion who denies the right of instruction, 
or by his silence, refuses to admit it, ought 
to be intrusted with the care of the public 
interests. 

Your fourth interrogatory is in the follow¬ 
ing words, to wit: 

4th. Do you believe, that under the constitu¬ 
tion of the United States, Senators in Congress 
may be elected by the separate action of the Gen¬ 
eral Assembly? 

I answer I do. Some of the States elect 
in that mode; and the constitutionality of 
such elections has never been denied or 
questioned. 

Your fifth interrogatory is as follows, to 
wit: 

5th. Did the proposition made by the Demo¬ 
crats in the last Legislature to elect one member 
of the Senate of the United States of the Whig 
party, and the other of the Democratic party 
meet your approbation, or did you approbate the 
refusal of the Whig members to accept such propo¬ 
sition? 

I answer that under the circumstances as 
they existed, the proposition of compromise, 
in the election of United States v Senators 
made by the Democratic party in the last 
Legislature, did meet my approbation. By 
the popular vote, it was apparent, that the 
political parties in the State, were very near¬ 
ly equally divided. By the elections of 
members of the General Assembly, it ap¬ 
peared that one party had a majority of 
three in the popular branch* and the other of 
one in the Senate. There being three times 
as many Representatives as there are Sena¬ 
tors, it follows, that one Senator represent¬ 
ed precisely as many people as three Rep¬ 
resentatives ; and that the majorities in the 
respective Houses, were precisely equal. I 
was desirous that the State should be repre¬ 
sented in the Senate of the United States, 
and believed at the time the proposition of 
compromise was made, that it was fair and 
proper; and that if it had been acceded to it 
would probably ha ve been satisfactory to the 
moderate men of both parties. When the 
proposition of compromise was rejected, my 
my opinion was and is, that the majority of 
thq Senate acted properly, in insisting up¬ 


on a mode of election conceded to be con^ j 
stitutional, by which the rights of their con¬ 
stituents could be preserved, and the election 
of Senators be prevented who concealed 
their opinions on public subjects, and re¬ 
fused to avow them when respectfully ask¬ 
ed by a portion of the constituent body to 
do so. 

Your 6th. and 7th. Interrogatories are as- 
follows, to wit: 

6th. Are you in favor of withdrawing the pro¬ 
ceeds of the public lands from the support of 
the Federal Government, and supplying the defi¬ 
cit occasioned thereby in the National Treasury 
by an increased Tariff—are you in favor of ap¬ 
propriating the proceeds aforesaid to meet the 
current expenses of the Government, and redu¬ 
cing to that amount the Tariff? 

7th. If you are in favor of distributing the 
proceeds of the public lands among the States, 
are you of opinion that such distribution should 
be confined to the lands within the limits of the 
cession of Virginia and other States to the Uni¬ 
ted States—or are you in favor of distributing al¬ 
so the proceeds of the lands purchased by the Uni¬ 
ted States from France, including Louisiana, and 
the lands purchased by the United States from 
Spain, including the Floridas? 

I answer that I am opposed to the policy 
of “withdrawing the proceeds of the public 
lands from the support of the Federal Gov¬ 
ernment” and distributing them to the States,, 
but would retain the moneys, derived from 
the sales of the lands in the Treasury, and 
apply them to the payment of the necessa¬ 
ry expenses of the General Government. I 
would retain and thus apply the moneys de¬ 
rived from the sale of the lands, whether 
embraced in the cession from the States, or 
the lands purchased by the United States, 
from France and Spain. It has been some¬ 
times assumed (erroneously as I think) that, 
the lands embraced in the cession from the 
States, were eonveyed in trust, and upon 
that ground it is said the moneys derived 
from them, may be distributed. I do not 
regard the acts of cession as containing such 
a trust : but if they did, the cost of extin¬ 
guishing Indian tide, of Indian wars,: render¬ 
ed necessary to get possession of them; of 
surveys, of salaries of officers, and other ex¬ 
penses of bringing them into market, it will 
be found on examination,, have cost more 
than the United States have ever received 
from the sale of lands,—bringing the lands 
actually indebted to the Treasury. The 
lands purchased from France and Spain y it 
is not pretended constitute a trust fund, and 




it cannot be maintained that upon that 
ground the proceeds of their sale can be 
distributed. For my views on this subject 
1 refer you to my published address to ‘‘the 
people of Tennessee,* 1 bearing date on the 
25th March, 1841. In that address I said: 

“The distribution of the proceeds of the sales of 
the public lands among the states, and the conse¬ 
quent increase of the Tariff to supply an amount 
of revenue equal to that which may be abstracted 
from the common treasury, will undoubtedly be 
among the measures of the new administration. 
This is not a new question.—It has been repeat¬ 
edly before Congress. It was brought up by Mr. 
Clay during the administration of Gen. Jackson, 
and was deliberately considered and settled at 
that time. At the session of 1832, 3, a Bill for 
that purpose passed both Houses of Congress, and 
was sent to the President for his approbation and 
signature, on the last day of the session. The 
President did not approve it, but not having time, 
before the adjournment to prepare his reasons, 
withheld it until the opening of the next session 
in December, following, when he communicated a 
message containing them, to the Senate of the 
United States. The President placed his objec- 
tions to the measure upon Constitutional 
grounds, as well as upon the grounds of its inexpe¬ 
diency. All the members of both Houses of Con¬ 
gress from this State, who were present at the 
vote, except one* of the Representatives, voted 
against it. Judge White , and Judge Grundy vo¬ 
ted against it-in the Senate; (see Senate Jour¬ 
nal, 2d Session 22 Congress, p 138.) John Blair , 
William Hall , Jacob G. Isaacks, James Standifer 
and myself voted against it in the House; (see 
Journal of the House of Representatives, 2d Ses¬ 
sion 22d Congress, p 460.) Three of our Repre¬ 
sentatives were not present at the vote, but it 
was well known at the time that they concurred 
in opinion with a majority of their colleagues, and 
would have voted against it if they had been pre¬ 
sent. The veto of the President was every where 
approved by the Republican party, and by none 
was it more heartily or generally approved than 
by the people of Tennessee. The measure had 
been recently revived, was the subject of protract¬ 
ed discussion in the late Congress, and from the 
developments before us, will be passed as an ad¬ 
ministration measure in the next.” 

“The proposed distribution is in truth, but a 
branch of Mr. Clay’s famed ‘American System’— 
a system embracing as its primary and leading ob¬ 
jects, a high protective tariff; a profuse and 
wasteful expenditure of public money for objects 
of Internal Improvement, and high prices of pub¬ 
lic lands; a system which operated so unjustly and 
oppressively upon the Southern and planting 
states, as to compel its advocates reluctantly to 
I yield to the ‘Compromise Act’ of 1833. Mr. Clay 
is the author of the measure, as he was of the ‘A- 
j merican System.’ The limits of this address will 
not allow me to enter upon an extended argument 
of the question. A few of the principal points of 
objection are all that can be here stated. If the 


receipts from the sales of the public rands, amount¬ 
ing to several millions annually, shall be abstract¬ 
ed from the Treasury and given to the States, it 
follows that an equal amount must be raised by an 
increase of the tariff, or by a tax in some other 
form, to supply the deficiency; and if raised by an 
increase of the tariff, it requires no argument to 
prove that the tax will be paid in unequal propor¬ 
tions by the people of the different sections of the 
Union—the Southern and planting States bear¬ 
ing much the greater part of the burden. To a- 
void this objection, and to conceal from the tax 
paying portion of the Union, the fact, that the ul¬ 
timate effect, if not the main object of the meas¬ 
ure, will be to afford a plausible pretext for an in¬ 
creased protective tariff, it is said that the in¬ 
creased tax may be levied on Wines, Silks, and 
other luxuries. Still it will be a tax upon labor, 
and will naturally affect the value of our products 
given in exchange for thenu Must it not strike 
the advocates of distribution too, that the power 
of this argument is lost, .when they reflect, that if 
luxuries are not sufficiently taxed, that the better 
plan would be to leave the moneys arising from 
lands in the Treasury, to defray the public expen¬ 
ses, as far as they will go, and to lighten the du¬ 
ties on necessary and increase them on luxuries2 
“In another view, the proposed distribution is 
a tariff measure. If it prevail, Massachusetts,, 
Vermont and other States, containing withir« 
their borders no portion of the public lands will 
be immediately vested with a local pecuniary in¬ 
terest in them.. The public lands will, in effect 
be mortgaged to the several States, in proportion 
to the Federal representation in Congress, and 
they will have an interest in having them sold at 
the highest possible rates. They will have an in¬ 
terest in opposing the graduation or reduction of 
price, and in opposing the grant of pre-emptions 
at low rates to that hardy an enterprising race of 
pioneer occupants who have gone with their fam¬ 
ilies to the West, built their ‘log cabins,’ opened 
their little farms and settled upon them, because 
they would apprehend that the amount of their 
respective dividends in the distribution would be 
thereby diminished. The manufacturing states 
would have a peculiar interest in resisting the re¬ 
duction of price or the grant of pre-emption to set¬ 
tlers at a low rate, because to keep up the price of 
the lands, and withhold grants of pre-emption, 
would be to check emigration, retain the laboring 
population at home, and thus reduce the wages 
of labor, and increase the profits of the capital¬ 
ists engaged in manufactures. The manufactur¬ 
ing interests would be advanced by another rea¬ 
son. They would receive their federal proportion 
of the distribution, and would not contribute in 
the same ratio in the payment of the tax to supply 
the deficiency. They would in addition to this re¬ 
ceive the bounties to their manufactures, which an 
increased tariff would afford, whilst these bounties 
would be paid by the South ; in every view of 
the measure, it is an auxiliary to the protective 
policy. It is presented, it is true, in the seduc¬ 
tive, but at the same time deceptive and disguis¬ 
ed form, of giving money to the States out of the 
Federal Treasury, when it is in truth laying new 
burdens on the people. The manufacturing 


* Thomas D. Arnold. 







& 


States so uaderstaud it, and hence the Legisla¬ 
tures of Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 
New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and some 
other States have during the past and present 
year, passsed legislatives Resolves instructing 
their Senators and requesting their Representa¬ 
tives in Congress to advocate the measure. The 
State of Connecticut publicly declares that such 
is her object by passing resolves, at the same time 
instructing her Senators and Representatives in 
Congress to “ resist by all constitutional means 
every attempt to destroy or impair the protective 
policy,” and to use their exertions to procure the 
passage of such laws as will effectually protect the 
labor of this country, the manufacturing labor of 
course is meant. The Legislature of Pennsylva¬ 
nia, in the month of January last, avowed in di¬ 
rect terms that an increase of the tariff was their 
object. They passed a resolve instructing their 
Senators and Representatives to advocate and 
vote for the distribution, and passed a second Re¬ 
solve in the following words viz J 

“ Resolved, That our Senators be further instruct¬ 
ed and our Representatives are requested to vote for 
such remodi/ication ar adjustment of the tariff, as 
may increase the revenue derived from imports e- 
qual to the wants of the National Government, so 
that at no time hereafter, under any pretext what¬ 
ever, shall any money arising from the sales of the 
public lands be used by the General Government .” 

“All the Resolves referred to were passed by 
Legislatures, a majority of whose members were 
the political friends and supporters of the present 
National Administration. They have all been 
officially communicated to the Executive of this 
State, (as I presume they have been to the Exec¬ 
utive of all the States,) with a request that the 
same may be laid before the next General As¬ 
sembly of Tennessee. The States of Alabama 
and Mississippi have passed Resolves responsive 
to the Resolves of Connecticut, in which they 
maintain the old ground of the South against the 
“protective policy.” That this State will main¬ 
tain similar ground with her Southern sister 
States, when the Resolves of Connecticut come to 
be considered by her Legislature, I cannot doubt; 
in the face of this evidence before us, none can 
be so blind as not to see that the measure to dis¬ 
tribute the proceeds of the sales of the public 
lands among the States, is but the pioneer step 
to the revival of a “protective tariff.” 

“But there are other reasons which are conclu¬ 
sive against it. If the money derived from the 
public lands be taken from the Treasury, and ab¬ 
stracted from the use of the Government to be 
distributed among the States, the States would 
receive it in sums diminished not only by the 
cost of distribution, but would be subjected to 
the additional cost necessarily incident to the 
collection of an equal sum by a tax in another 
form. In a more fiscal point of view, therefore, 
the policy of the measure cannot be justified.— 

But there is still a higher and a weightier ob¬ 
jection. The public lands are the common pro¬ 
perty of all the States, and when the money de¬ 
rived from them is collected and placed in the 
Treasury, it goes into the common fund of the 
Nation, and is subject, as all other public monies 


collected from other sources are, to be applied to* 
defray the necessary expenses of Government.— 
When in the Treasury, it cannot be distinguish¬ 
ed from money collected by duties on imports, 
and the Government possesses the same power to 
distribute or give away money derived from the 
one source, as the other. What would be thought 
of a proposition to distribute or give to the States, 
as a mere donation, the money collected by du¬ 
ties on imports, thereby creating the necessity for 
anew tax, or increased tariff; to supply the defi¬ 
ciency, and yet there is the same constitutional 
power to do this, that there is to distribute the 
money derived from the lands. To distribute or 
give away to the States money in the Treasury 
derived from other sources, would be in effect to 
make the Federal Government the tax gatherer 
for the States, a power not conferred upon that 
Government by the Constitution; and in this 
view the measure presents such insuperable ob¬ 
jections to my mind that I cannot yield to it my 
support. 

“Should the policy of distribution prevail, an¬ 
other consequence which will follow will be the 
revival of that splendid and wasteful and cor¬ 
rupting System of Internal Improvements by 
Federal authority, which was checked and arrest¬ 
ed by the Veto on the Maysville Road Bill. In¬ 
deed, a system of Federal internal improvements 
is the hand-maid of a protective tariff, and fur¬ 
nishes the obsorbent or spunge which is to suck 
up the revenues necessarily collected by a high 
protective tariff, and whether prosecuted in the 
form of direct appropriations from the Treasury 
or through the agency of the States, the effect is 
the same.” 

Your 8th Interrogatory is as follows, to 
wit: 

“8th. Are you in favor of restoring to Gen.. 
Jackson the fine imposed on him by Judge Hall 
at New Orleans, immediately after the siege of 
that city; and if so, are you in favor of doing so 
without condition or restriction—or would you 
impose as a condition of such restoration a pro¬ 
vision in the act approving the conduct of Judge 
Hall implying a censure of Gen. Jackson? 

I answer that I am in “favor of restoring 
to Gen. Jackson the fine imposed on him by 
Judge Hall immediately after the seige of 
New Orleans, and l am in favor of restoring 
it, without conditioner restriction. I would 
not in the act of restoration, approve the 
conduct of Judge Hall, and thereby imply 
a censure of General Jackson. I believe 
that the declaration of martial law by Gen. 
Jackson was probably the only mean$ of 
saving New Orleans.. I believe that the act 
which was charged against General Jackson 
to be a contempt of judicial authority, was 
one which was necessary and proper for the 
continual safety of New Orleans. I believe 
that the conduct of Judge Hall was unpat¬ 
riotic and vindictive, and the fine which Gen „ 




-Jackson was required to pay under his sen¬ 
tence, ought to be restored to him with in¬ 
terest from the date of its payment. 

Your 9th interrogatory is as follows, to 
wit: 

9th. Are you in favor of the bill reported by 
a Whig committee of the Senate of the United 
States in the last Congress, proposing to pay the 
heirs of Gen. Hull his salary as Governor of 
Michigan, from the time he surrendered himself 
and the American army to the British command¬ 
er during the last war, until he was exchanged 
for, tried by a Court Martial of American officers, 
sentenced by them to be shot, and pardoned by 
President Madison. 

I answfer that I am opposed to “the Bill 
reported by a Whig committee of the Son- 
ate of the United States in the last Con¬ 
gress, for the benefit of the Heirs of Gen. 
Hull , net being able to perceive any princi¬ 
ple of patriotism or of justice, which would 
entitle them to the donation which it pro¬ 
posed to make to them. In striking contrast 
with the proposition made for the benefit of 
the heirs Hull, is the refusal of the same 
committee of the Senate, to restore to Gen. 
Jackson, the fine imposed on him at New 
Orleans, without accompanying it with a pro¬ 
vision, acquitting Judge Hall of all improper 
conduct, thereby implying a censure on the 
conduct of General Jackson. The differ¬ 
ence between the conduct of General Hull 
and General Jackson is, that the former 
commenced the war with disgrace to him¬ 
self and the latter closed it with honor to 
himself and his country. The Whig com¬ 
mittee of the Senate, proposed to reward 
the heirs of the former and refused to do 
justice to the latter by restoring to him his 
own money, improperly taken from him, by 
a vindictive judge, without accompanying it 
with a condition, implying a censure, and 
thereby inflicting a wound upon his reputa¬ 
tion. 

Your 10th interrogatory is as follows, to 
wit: 

10th. Are you of opinion that it was constitu¬ 
tional or expedient to pass the act which was 
passed at the extra session of Congress donating 
to Mrs. Harrison, widow of the late President 
Harrison, about twenty-three thousand dollars of 
the public money? 

I answer that in my opinion it was not 
constitutional or expedient, to make the do¬ 
nation which was made by Congress to Mrs. 
Harrison , widow of the late President Har¬ 
rison. Congress possesses no power to make 
mere donations , such as I regard this to be. 


The precedent if followed will lead to the 
worst of consequences. Upon the same 
principle, upon which the grant was made 
to Mrs. Harrison t, similar grants may be 
made to the widows of our ministers abroad, 
of the members of the cabinet, of members 
of Congress, of the Judges of our courts, 
and other civil officers, who may happen to 
die whilst in the public service. The pre¬ 
cedent is a dangerous one, and if followed 
may lead to the establishment of an immense 
civil pension list, such as exists in the Eng¬ 
lish monarchy* In the short debate which 
occurred in the Senate of the United States, 
whilst the Bill granting this donation to 
Mrs. Harrison was pending before that bo¬ 
dy, a distinguished Senator declared that, 
“The aid of precedent is invoked in this 
case, but in vain. It has no precedent, but 
will form a dreadful one.” 

* * * * 

And again he said “At the head of these 
cases so cited, stands the act for the benefit 
of Mrs. Brown, widow of General Brown, 
which was passed by Congress, in the year 
1828, and gave to her the remainder of her 
husband’s pay for the year in which he died, 
that is to say about nine months pay.” 

“I was contemporary with this case—know all 
about it—acted a part in it—have its history in 
my mind, as well as in the debates of the day— 
and can show that it has no analogy to the pre¬ 
sent case, and was respectably opposed at the 
time as being without warrant from the Constitu¬ 
tion—of evil example—and would be quoted in 
after times for even worse acts. I voted against 
it, and so did many others, and among them those 
who were usually found standing as a body guard 
around the constitution. The votes against the bill 
was, Messrs Bell, Benton, Branch, Chandler, 
Cobb, Dickinson, Ellis, Foot, King of Alabama, 
Macon, Noble, Parris, Tazwell, Tyler, White 
and Williams. We were sixteen who stood to¬ 
gether on that occasion—a number not large,— 
but graced with some names which have weight 
with the country. This case of Mrs. Brown’s is 
quoted as a precedent for Mrs. Harrison’s bill, 
but most unjustly. It is a military, and not a 
civil case. Her husband died in the army, and 
the reporter of the bill (General Harrison) produ¬ 
ced the statements of the Surgeon General of the 
Army, (Dr. Lovell) and of another physician, 
(Dr. Henderson) to prove that General Brown 
died in consequence of a disease contracted in the 
public service, and was to be classed with those 
who were killed in the line of their duty. “It will 
be seen (said General Harrison) that the Surgeon 
General asserts that if General Brown had lived, 
and retired from the army , he would have given him 
a cectijicatc for a full pension under the existing 
lavjs of the country.”-- 1 This was the argument of 



8 


General Harrison, and in conformity to it, pro¬ 
posed a preamble to the bill in Ihe.-e words:— 
'Whereas the late Major General Broum died in 
consequence of indisposition , contracted in the ser¬ 
vice of the United States , &c., and another member 
of the Senate, now a Senator (Mr. Berrien) offer¬ 
ed an amendment to the body of the bill, declar¬ 
ing the reasons for this grant in these words: 

‘ Whose death is supposed to have been caused by 
disease contracted while in the service of the United 
States on the Niagara frontier .’ This preamble 
and this amendment were not adopted, for fear 
they would make precedents; and now the act be¬ 
come a far more dangerous precedent without 
these clauses than it would have been with them. 

“Such was the case of Mrs. Brown—a military 
case—coming within the equity, as the friends of 
the measure agreed, of the then existing pension 
Jaws. And this case is to be made a precedent for 
Mrs. Harrison, whose case is a civil one, and in¬ 
capable of being assimilated in a solitary particu¬ 
lar with the one to which it refers for justification. 
Such is precedent-—such the folly—the danger of 
construeing our Constitution by precedent? The 
first instance is got upon one reason, the next up- 
nn another, and so on, until all reasons are lost 
sight of; the Constitution itself is lost sight of— 
and the Legislature reigns supreme without a lim¬ 
it upon its power, or a guide to its acts 1” 

The other precedents usually quoted, 
bear as little analogy to the case of Mrs. 
Harrison , as does that of Mrs. Brown.- — 
The grant to La Fayette for example was 
based upon the ground of military services 
rendered in the War of the Revolution, for 
which he had never been adequately com¬ 
pensated. The case of Mrs. Decatur , and 
the officers and crew of the vessel comman¬ 
ded by her late husband, the gallant com¬ 
modore Decatur , was not an application for 
a donation , such as was granted to Mrs. 
Harrison , but was a claim presented for 
prizemoney, under the equity of the act of 
Congress, which grants prize-money to the 
captors of vessels of war from a foreign ene¬ 
my. Decator and his officers and crew per¬ 
formed one of the most gallant deeds, of any 
age, by recapturing the Frigate Philadelphia 
under the wall and guns of Tripoli. By 
the order of the commander of the squadron 
before he set out on the expedition, he set 
fire to the vessel and burned her after she 
was recaptured, when, but for such orders, 
he could have brought her safely out. His 
widow after his death, and the brave officers 
and seamen, who were with him, claimed 
that they were equitably entitled to prize- 
money. This is the cause of Mrs. Decatur , 
sometimes referred to, and there are no 
points of analogy between it and the cause 


of Mrs. Harrison. The one is a claim; the 
other is a. mere naked donation. I cannot 
refer to ihe other precedents quoted, with¬ 
out swelling this answer to unreasonable 
length. I will only add that it is the princi¬ 
ple involved in the grant to Mrs. Harrison, 
to which I object. 

Your 11th. Interrogatory is as follows, to 
wit: 

11th. Are you in favor of the tariff act now 
in force passed by the last Congress ? 

I answer that I am not in “favor of the 
iariff act now in force, passed by the last 
Congress.” It is in my opinion, in tnany 
of its provisions, highly protective , and not 
designed as a revenue measure. For my 
views as expressed at some length upon the 
subject, I refer you to a speech delivered by 
me at Pulaski, on the 29th of September, 
1842; and also to one delivered by me at 
Jackson, on the 3d of April 1843; both of 
which have been published. 

Having now, gentlemen, answered your 
several interrogatories as I trust, satisfactori¬ 
ly ; and having also answered certain other 
interrogatories, propounded by others of my 
fellow-citizens of Shelby county—I shall 
forward both answers, by the next mail to 
Memphis, to the end that they may be pub¬ 
lished. I am, gentlemen, 

With high respect, 

Your obedient serv’t. 
JAMES K. POLK. 


Columbia, May 15, 1843. 

To Messrs. Wyatt Christian , J. T. heath , 
and others: 

Gentlemen: —I have received through 
the Memphis Enquirer the communication 
of yourselves and other citizens of Shelby 
County, addressed to Gov. Jones and my¬ 
self, propounding to each, certain interroga¬ 
tories upon public subjects, to which I now 
proceed to reply. 

Your first interrogatory is as follows, viz: 

“1st. Are you in favor of a mixed currency of 
paper money and the precious metals?” 

I onswer that I am in favor of such cur¬ 
rency—and for my views as expressed on 
the subject, I refer you to my Message to 
the General Assembly of this State, of the 
22d of October 1839. In that message you 
will find that after earnestly urging the pro¬ 
priety of an oarly resumption of specie pay¬ 
ments by our Banks, I say: 




9 


“Banks, and the use of Bank paper and credits, 
have become from long habit interwoven and in¬ 
timately connected with all our extensive com¬ 
mercial operations, and if it be conceded that 
their employment to a reasonable extent, in con¬ 
ducting our trade, has in the existing state of our 
currency, become conducive to our prosperity, it 
must also be allowed that no Banks or Bank issues 
should be tolerated which do not rest on a solid 
and substantial specie basis, and be required to 
meet the demands of trade. 

****** 

The circulation which they isssue should be bas¬ 
ed upon a solid metalic foundation, such as will 
ensure an ability at all times to meet their liabili¬ 
ties promptly, and its quantity should be kept as 
nearly as practicable at the same amount, varying 
as it necessarily must to a small extent, with the 
seasons of shipment of our produce to market, and 
the return of the proceeds; but this variation need 
not be such as to effect materially, the amount or 
value of their circulation.” * * * * 

To those views I now add, that, in my 
opinion the precious metals should be the 
basis of whatever paper circulation may be 
authorised or tolerated by law. Like indi¬ 
vidual debtors, Banks should meet their lia¬ 
bilities honestly and promptly, and when¬ 
ever they fail to do so,*I hold it' to be the 
duty of the Legislative power to take effi¬ 
cient means to compel them to do their du¬ 
ty- 

To your second and third interrogatories, 
which are in the following words, to wit: 

“2d. If so, from what source should paper mo¬ 
ney eminate; from the State Governments or Gen¬ 
eral Government? 

“3d. If from the General Government, in 
what mode should the people receive it—through 
the agency of a Bank, or otherwise?” 

I answer that the States, having exer¬ 
cised the power of chartering Banks of is¬ 
sue, from an early period of the Govern¬ 
ment, and with the general acquiescence of 
the people—and being in this respect, be¬ 
yond the power and control of the General 
Government—all must expect and concede 
that there must and will continue to be a 
State Bank paper circulation; whether a 
National Bank exists or not. There was a 
State Bank paper circulation during the 
whole period of the existence of the two 
Banks of the United States—and if another 
National Bank were established, there 
would undoubtedly still continue to be such 
a circulation. Many of the State Banks 
have charters which have many years to 
run, and some of them I believe to be per¬ 
petual. The establishment of a National 
Bank therefore, could not supercede them, 


but must, if established, kssue a paper which 
would circulate with State Bank paper. The 
State Bank circulation would constitute 
much the largest amount of the aggregate 
paper circulation, and the experience of the 
twenty years of the existence of the late 
Bank of the United States proves, that the 
paper of State Banks, used as it was by the 
great mass of the people in their daily trans¬ 
actions, was at much more ruinous rates of 
depreciation than it now is. The rates of 
exchange between different sections of the 
Union were higher, and exchanges more 
difficult to be obtained than they now are, 
without a Bank of the United States. I am 
therefore, in favor of a circulation to con¬ 
sist of the precious metals and the paper of 
specie paying State Banks, convertible on 
demand into specie—and should any such 
Bank suspend payment, or refuse to redeem 
its circulation in specie, I would adopt the 
most rigid means within the power,of the 
Legislature to compel such Bank to pay, 
and in the event of failure, I would put it 
into a state of liquidation and wind it up. I 
will add further, that I would not yield my 
individual assent to the chartering of any 
future Bank by State authority, without ma¬ 
king the Stockholders liable in their individ¬ 
ual estates for the payment for the paper 
which they issue; I would place them upon 
a footing with other partnerships. Capital¬ 
ists form partnerships and invest their mon¬ 
ey in merchandizing, manufacturing or oth¬ 
er business, 'with a view to make profits, 
and are liable in their individual property 
for the payment of the debts of the firm; 
and I can see no good reason why capital¬ 
ists who join together and invest their money 
in the business of Banking with a like view 
to make a profit, should not in like manner 
be held liable to pay the joint debts of the 
Banking corporation, or firm. I am oppo¬ 
sed to the chartering by Congress of a Na¬ 
tional incorporated Bank—I believe that 
Congress possesses no constitutional power 
to charter such a Bank, and if it did, it would 
in my opinion, be inexpedient to exercise it. 
—These opinions I have long held. The 
reasons for them have been often communi¬ 
cated to the public in writing, in printed 
speeches, and in public debates before many 
thousands of my fellow-citizens of Tennes¬ 
see, and I presume that it cannot be neces¬ 
sary that I should here repeat them. 





10 


To your fourth interrogatory, in the fol¬ 
lowing words, viz: 

“Are you in favor of the Sub-Treasury System 
passed by Congress in 1840, and repealed in 
1841.” 

I answer that I am; and for my views as 
given at some length on the subject, I refer 
you to my two published addresses to “the 
people of Tennessee,” the one bearing date 
on the 3d of April, and the other on the 
25th of March, 1841. In my address of 
1839,1 avowed myself to be “in favor of 
keeping the money of the people in the 
Treasury of the people under the care of 
officers elected by the people and responsi¬ 
ble to them, where it can at all times be 
commanded for public purposes, and not in 
Banks, not elected by the people and not 
responsible to them, to be loaned out for 
private purposes.” 

In speaking of a fiscal agent of Govern¬ 
ment, I said in that address: 

“The Bank of the United States had been 
tried and proved faithless. The State Banks 
had been tried and proved faithless. Was it 
not time to devise a system which should fulfill 
the requirements of the Constitution, and pre¬ 
vent any money from being “drawn from the 
Treasury but in consequence of appropriations 
made by law?” It has been the endeavor of the 
President and of the Republican party, for al¬ 
most two years, to introduce such a system.— 
They propose to establish an Independent 
Treasury—a Treasury independent of Banks—a 
Treasury in fact, and not in theory. They pro¬ 
pose that the Government shall keep its own mo¬ 
ney in its own Treasury, where it can, at all 
times, in peace and in war, be commanded for 
public uses. To a proposition so simple, and 
which, in earlier days of the Republic, would 
have struck every mind as self evident, many 
objections have been started, some of them 
plausible, but none of them substantial.” 

In my address of 1841,1 said: 

“Another measure of the party in power is 
proclaimed to be the removal of the public mon¬ 
ey from tho constitutional Treasury, where it is 
now kept, and where it has been kept safely un¬ 
der a financial system that has thus far worked 
well, and which will no doubt continue to work 
well, if it be preserved. Where it is proposed 
to place the public money, if the Independent 
Treasury law shall be repealed, ha3 not been 
distinctly avowed. It was undoubtedly at one 
time, intended .by many of the leading men of 
the party, to place it in the United States Rank 
of Pennsylvania, and thus bolster up that rotten 
institution by furnishing to it the money of the 
public to Bank and to speculate upon. That 
Bank, which it will be remembered Mr. Biddle 
declared was stronger under the charter from 
Pennsylvania, than under that from the United 


States; and in reference to which Gen. Harri¬ 
son, in his letter to Sherrod Williams, dated 
“North Bend, May 1st, 1836,” declared “Penn¬ 
sylvania has wisely taken care to appropriate to 
herself the benefits of its large capital;” it has, 
however, recently gone down, and now lies a 
heap of ruin in a state of utter prostration, if not 
of insolvency. 

The market price of its stock is down below 
twenty dollars in the hundred. They cannot 
therefore place the public money in the Bank.— 
Where else will they put it? Most of the Banks 
of the United States have suspended specie pay¬ 
ments. Will they place it in their keeping, and 
if they do, will they receive and pay out to the 
Pensioners, the labourers on the public works, 
and other public creditors, their depreciated pa¬ 
per? Do they mean that the taxes of the people, 
paid for the support of Government shall be fur¬ 
nished to these, or any other Banks, to be a part 
of their banking capital? 

If it is not to be so kept and used, where is it 
to be kept? There is no National Bank, and if 
one was created, it-could not be put into opera¬ 
tion in less than twelve or eighteen months so as 
to receive them. And yet it is manifest that 
the immediate repeal of the Independent Treas¬ 
ury System, is one of the leading measures of the 
party in power. 

It is not now my purpose to enter upon the 
argument of the policy of the Independent Trea¬ 
sury System, or of the necessity which led to its 
adoption. These have been often presented to 
my fellow-citizens, and if necessary, will be 
again, in my personal intercourse with them. It 
has been sometimes urged by my political oppo¬ 
nent, that I, at one time, gave my support to the 
State Bank Deposite System. This was fully ex¬ 
plained in my address to the people in 1839. In 
that address I stated that the late Bank of the 
United States had been tried and proved to be a 
faithless fiscal agent. For its long catalogue of 
crimes and misdemeanors, General Jackson with¬ 
drew the public money from its keeping, and dis¬ 
missed it as a fiscal agent of the Government.— 
The State Banks were again employed. At that 
time they were generally in good credit. They 
paid specie for their notes, and it was believed 
they would continue to do so, and that as between 
their employment and that of the Bank of the 
United States, they were to be preferred. It was 
believed that they would be faithful, and might 
be convenient fiscal agents. The Government 
was willing to try them; upon trial they proved 
to be unfaithful, and the State Bank System of 
fiscal agency utterly failed. 

It is unneces ary to enquire whether the fail¬ 
ure of the State Bank Depoite Systrm in 1837, 
happened from accident, an inherent defect in 
the system, from inevitable necessity, by deign 
or by fraud. I£ is enough lhat it has once hap¬ 
pened to put the Government on its guard a- 
gainst a recurrence for the future. After the 
Bank of the United States had been dismissed as 
the fiscal agent of the Government, and the pub¬ 
lic money had been placed in the State Banks, it 
was deemed to be proper to pass a law “regula¬ 
ting the deposite of the money of the United 



II 


States m certain local banks.” A Bill with that 
object was accordingly introduced at the session 
of Congress of 1834-’35. It was violently oppos¬ 
ed by all the friends of the Bank of the United 
States, and all those who were in favor of resto¬ 
ring the public money to the keeping of that in¬ 
stitution. After a protracted discussion, and 
after the bill had been matured, and was ready 
for the final action of the House, a proposition 
of amendment was made by a gentleman, (Mr. 
Gordon) who disapproved the removal of the de- 
posite:- and was avowedly in favor of their resto¬ 
ration to t ie Bank of the United States—to dis¬ 
pense with the use of all Banks as fiscal agents. 
The proposition was presented in a crude and 
undigested form. It provided no vaults or other 
place in which the public money could be safely 
kept. It provided no punishment for the fraud¬ 
ulent or improper use of it. It contained none 
of the guards and checks of the present Independ¬ 
ent Treasury law, by which the public money is 
so amply secured in the Treasury, against pecu¬ 
lation and fraud. It was a naked proposition 
without details, and haid it been adopted, would 
have been wholly impracticable. It was not 
brought forward in a manner, or under circum¬ 
stances to attract the serious consideration of 
any considerable portion of either party in the 
House, and the highest evidence that it was only 
intended to embarrass the measure before the 
House, consists in the fact, that all who voted for 
it, with a single exception, were the friends of 
the Bank of the United States, and in favour 
of restoring the custody of the public money to 
that institution. The fact that it was intended 
only to embarrass the measure before the House, 
and tocoeice the restoration of the deposites to 
the Bank of the United States, has been distinct¬ 
ly admitted by one of the friends of the Bank, 
who voted for it, (Mr. Wise, of Va.) in a letter 
addressed to his constituent, on the 24th of March 
1840. In that letter he say;:—“I am asked whe¬ 
ther I voted for what is called Gordon’s proposi¬ 
tion in 1837, and for my explanation of that 
vote.” And after making some explanation, he 
adds:—“And I now declare that I would not 
have voted for either of these propositions if 
there had been the least prospect of its passage. 
This I expressly declared to Gen'l. Gordon in 
relation to his amendment, when he first named 
it to me.” > 

The struggle at that Session (1835) was be¬ 
tween the Bank of the United States on the one 
hand, and the regulation of the deposites by law 
in the State Banks on the other. The friends of 
the Bank of the United States, insisted that the 
deposites should be restored to that institution. 
The opponents of the Bank insisted that so ut¬ 
terly faithless as a fiscal agent had that Bank 
proved itself to be, that they ought not to be res¬ 
tored, and that in the existing state of things, it 
was proper to pass a law, to regulate their safe¬ 
keeping in the State Banks—calculating, doubt¬ 
less, that if no law was passed, that that system 
of deposite would soon get into confusion and 
the Government be compelled to return the pub¬ 
lic money to the Bank of the United States. 

The condition of the State Banks at that time, 


and their condition after they suspended specie 
payments in 1837, was widely different. Whilst 
they paid specie and faithfully performed their 
duties as fiscal agents, it was considered that 
their employment was to be preferred to that of 
the Bank of the United States. When they 
ceased to pay species, and faithfully to discharge 
their duties to the public, they were dismissed.— 
Whilst they paid specie the friends of the Bank 
of the United States objected to their employ¬ 
ment, but when they failed to pay specie they be¬ 
came their apologists and advocate. On the oth¬ 
er hand, . whilst they paid specie the opponents 
of the Bank of the United States were willing to 
try them, but when they failed to do so, they 
were unwilling longer to continue the deposite of 
the public money with them. The Bank of the 
United States and the State Banks have both 
been tried, and proved faithless; the Govern¬ 
ment learned wisdom from experience, and pro¬ 
posed to establish an Independent Treasury—a 
Treasury independent of Banks—a constitution¬ 
al Treasury in fact, and not in theory only.— 
Such a Treasury has been established, and I see 
no reason why it should be discontinued, and the 
Government resort back again to the Bank de¬ 
posite system, either State or National.” 

I now only add—that I have seen no rea¬ 
son to change my views as expressed in 
these addresses. The constitution of the 
United States contemplates a public Treasu¬ 
ry. It provides that “no money shall be 
drawn from the Treasury, but in cons©' 
quence of appropriations made by law.”— 
Such a Treasury is provided by the Inde¬ 
pendent Treasury Act, called by you “the 
Sub-Treasury System.” It provided that 
the public money, between the periods of 
collection and disbursement, should be kept 
in the vaults of the Treasury at Washing¬ 
ton, and in strong boxes provided at the 
principal points of collection, that it should 
be under tire lock and key of the Govern¬ 
ment—under the care of officers elected or 
chosen by the people according to the forms 
of the constitution of the U. States—that 
these officers should be placed under bonds 
with approved security, be under oaths, and 
be subject to ignominious punishment by 
long imprisonment in the common jail or 
penitentiary for a violation of their duty.— 
The system had worked well and was work¬ 
ing well, when the party in power, at their 
extra session of Congress in 1841 repealed 
it. It is an error to attribute the defalcation 
of Swartwoiet and others to this system.— 
They occurred long before the Independent 
law was passed. Swahtwoutfs defalcation 
commenced, (though he was not detected 
until afterwards) during the period when the 






Bank of the United States was the fiscal a- 
gent depository of the public money. The 
party in power repealed the Independent 
Treasury act, but have provided no substi¬ 
tute in its place. They have been in pow¬ 
er more than two years, and where yet is 
the substitute which they have provided? 
They have left the public money to be kept 
under the act of 1789—which provides that 
it “shall be received and kept by the Trea¬ 
sury of tire United States.” They have 
left it to the discretion of their President, 
Mr. Tyler,'to direct the place and manner in 
which it shall be kept. When the same 
tiring occurred after the removal of the de- 
posites from the late Bank of the United 
States by Gen. Jackson, and before the act 
was passed regulating their keeping in the 
State Banks, the same party charged that 
there was a union of the purse and the sword 
in the hands of the President which was 
dangerous to liberty, and yet, the moment 
they obtained possession of power, they did 
the same thing themselves. The charge 
that there was a union of purse and sword 
was false. They however, made it, and if 
they still maintain its truth, they have them¬ 
selves united them. 

But the party in power may say, that they 
have attempted to furnish a substitute by 
passing Mr. Clay's Bank Bill “To incorpo¬ 
rate subscribers to the Fiscal Bank of the 
United States,” vetoed by Mr. Tyler. That 
Bill proposed to make that Bank the fiscal 
agent and keeper of the moneys of the U. 
States. It provides that the “deposites of 
the money of the United States” should be 
made in that Bank and that “all public mo¬ 
nies on deposit in said Bank, or standing on 
its books to the credit of the Treasury, shall 
be taken and deemed to be in the Treasury 
of the United States.” This Bank then— 
by Mr. Clay's Bill was to be the Treasury 
of the United States. Mr. Clay’s Bill pro¬ 
vided that the United States was to sub¬ 
scribe for one third of the Capital Stock and 
other Stockholders for the remaining two 
thirds of the stock. It provided that the 
Bank should be governed by nine Directors, 
three of whom were to be appointed by the 
United States, and six of whom by the other 
Stockholders. The public money was to be 
placed in its keeping, and when there, was 
declared to be considered in the Treasury of 
the United States. The Treasury of the 


United States was thus to be placed, out of 
the power and control of the Government 
and in the keeping of six out of nine Bank 
Directors not elected or appointed by the 
Government or people of the United States, 
owing no responsibility to either, under no 
bonds, no oaths, and subject to no punish¬ 
ment for an abuse of their trust. Such was 
the fiscal agency by Mr. Clay's Bank Bill. 
I fully submit to you, gentlemen, whether 
such a treasury or plan of fiscal agency, is 
one which you can approve, or which you 
prefer to the Independent Treasury System, 
under which the Government kept control 
of its own money by placing it in a Treasury 
in fact, and not in theory only, under the 
care and control of responsible agents, se¬ 
lected by the people according to the con¬ 
stitution and laws. 

Your 5th and 6th Interrogatories are in 
the following words, to wit: 

“5th. Are you in favor of a tariff or direct 
taxes for the support of the General Govern¬ 
ment?” 

“6th. If a tariff, do you approve of such a 
tariff as would give protection to home industry 
against foreign industry.” 

I answer that I am opposed to a system of 
direct taxation, and am in favor of a mode¬ 
rate scale of duties, laid by a tariff on impor¬ 
ted goods for the purpose of raising the rev¬ 
enue which may be needed for the economi¬ 
cal administration of the Government. In 
fixing the rates of a tariff, my opinion is, that 
the object in view should be to raise the rev¬ 
enue needed by Government leaving the in¬ 
terests engaged in manufactures, to enjoy 
the incidental advantage which the levy of 
such duties will afford them. If by “giving 
protection to home industry,” you mean to 
assert the distinct principle, that a tariff' is 
to be laid solely or in any extent not for rev¬ 
enue, but for the protection of capitalists 
who have made their investments in manu¬ 
facturing establishments, so as to compel the 
consumers of their articles, the agricultu¬ 
rists, mechanics, persons employed in com¬ 
merce and all other pursuits to pay higher 
prices for them, then I say that I am opposed 
to such a principle, and to any tariff which 
recognizes it. “Home industry,” terms so 
often used by the advocates of the protec¬ 
tive tariff system, are comprehensive in 
their meaning, and by a just legislation 
should be made to embrace the industry em¬ 
ployed in agriculture, in the mechanic arts. 




13 


in commerce and all other pursuits, as well 
as the industry employed in manufactures. 

I have at all times been opposed to prohibi¬ 
tory or high protective tariff laws, designed 
not for revenue, but to advance the interests 
of one portion of the people employed in 
manufactures, by taxing another and much 
the larger portion, thus making the many 
tributary to the increased wealth of the few. 

I am opposed to the tariff act of the late 
Congress, considering it to be in many res¬ 
pects of this character—and, indeed, so 
highly protective upon some articles as to 
prohibit their importation into the country, 
altogether. I am in favor of repealing that 
act, and restoring the compromise tariff act 
of March 2d, 1833: believing as I do, that 
it would produce more revenue than the pre¬ 
sent law, and that the incidental protection 
afforded by the 20 per cent duty, especially 
when this would be paid in cash, and on the 
home valuation, will afford sufficient pro¬ 
tection to the manufacturers, and all that they 
ought to desire, or to which they are entitled. 

Your last interrogatory is in the following 
words, to wit: 

“7th. Are you in favor of the election of U. 
States Senators by joint ballot of both Houses of 
the Legislature? If not, by what mode should 
they be elected?” 

I answer, that by the Constitution of the 
■ United States it is provided that “The times, 
places, and m inner of holding elections for 
Senators and Representatives shall be pre¬ 
scribed in each State by the Legislature 
thereof; but that Congress may at any time 
by law, make or alter such regulations, ex¬ 
cept as to the places of choosing Senators.” 
The Legislature of this State have never by 
law prescribed the times , places or manner 
S of electing Senators. Our practice has been 
to elect by joint ballot. In other States a 
different mode has been adopted, and in 
some of them the practice has been to choose 
by the concurrent vote of the two Houses— 
each House acting in its separate and dis- 
: tinct Legislative character, as it does in pas¬ 
sing laws or performing any other Legislative 
act. Senators elected in each of these 
modes have been permitted to take their 
seats and serve as such—no constitutional 
question as to the “ manner ” of their elec¬ 
tion, so far as I know, having been raised.— 
I think then, in the absence of any Legisla¬ 
tive provision prescribing the “manner,” that 
it rests in the sound discretion of each House 


of the Legislature, to select the mode or 
manner, which in its judgement will best 
subserve the public interest. The mode by 
concurrent vote of each House is conceded- 
ly constitutional, and if by insisting upon it 
as the preferable mode—that be the only 
means of effecting a great public good, or 
preventing a great public injury—such as 
preventing the election of persons to the 
Senate of the United States who conceal 
their opinions upon public subjects interest¬ 
ing to the people, and who refused to make 
them known, or to say whether they admit 
or deny the right of instruction, when res¬ 
pectfully interrogated upon these points by 
any portion of the constituent body. In such 
cases, or similar, 1 hold that either branch of 
the Legislature, would only be justified in 
adhering, but it would be due to the rights 
of their constituents, whose interests were 
to be deeply effected, that they should ad¬ 
here to the manner , by which these rights 
would be protected and preserved. The 
chief, k if not the only value of the right of 
suffrage consists in the fact, that it may be 
exercised understanding^ by the costitu- 
ent body. It is so, whether the immediate 
constituency consists of the Legislature, as 
in the case of the election of the U. States 
Senators, or of the people in their primary 
capacity, in the elections of their Executive 
or Legislative agents. In either case the 
constituent has the right to know the opin¬ 
ions of the candidate before he casts his vote. 

I have now, gentlemen, answered your 
interrogatories. I have also answered certain 
other interrogatories propounded through 
the public papers at Memphis, by a portion 
of your fellow-citizens of Shelby County— 
and as the answer to each set of interroga¬ 
tories, is, in some degree, connected with 
the answers to the other—some of the inter¬ 
rogatories in both being upon the same sub¬ 
jects-—I shall forward both answers by the 
next mail which leaves for Memphis, that 
they may be published. 

Iam gentlemen, with high respect, 

Your obed’t serv’t. 

JAMES K. POLK. 


Gov. Polk’s Letter* 

On the Public Expenditures , Public Debt , 
Tariff\ dfc. 

TO THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE. 

The subjects of the public expenditures, 






u 


the public debt, the tariff, and Bank of the 
United States, having been discussed by my 
competitor and myself in the pending gub¬ 
ernatorial election, and differing as we did 
in our respective statements of facts upon 
some of these subjects, it was-at my instance 
that it was agreed at Carrollville, on the 
12th of April, 1843, that we would write 
out and print our respective views and 
opinions. 

I affirm that the present administration 
have not redeemed the pledges made to the 
people prior to the Presidential- election of 
1840, that they would in the event of their 
success, reduce the public expenditures.— 
They charged in 1840, that the expendi¬ 
tures of ihe late administration were reck¬ 
lessly and profligately extravagant, and that 
they would bring them down. Mr. Clay in 
his speech delivered at Taylorsville, in the 
county of Hanover, in the State of Vir¬ 
ginia, on the 27th of' June, 1840, promised 
that “a pruning knife, long, broad, and sharp, 
should be applied to every Department of 
the Government. There is abundant scope 
for honest and skilful surgery. The annual 
expenditure may in reasonable time be 
brought down from its present amount of 
about forty millions to near one-third of that 
sum.” Similar promises—some of them 
even more extravagant—were made by oth¬ 
er leading men, and by leading journals of 
the same party. 

They have been in power more than two 
years, and I affirm that, instead of reducing, 
they have largely increased the public ex¬ 
penditures; and th : s I proceed to establish. 
I will first examine the expenditures of the 
year ’40, being the last year of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren’s term, and the expenditures of the year 
1841 and 1842, being the first two years of 
the term of the party in power; and will 
then examine the expenditures of 1837, 
1838, and 1839, being the first three years 
of Mr. Van Buren’s term. 

Mr. Ewing, the Secretary of the Treasury 
appointed by General Harrison, in his re¬ 
port on the State of the finances made to 
the extra session of Congress, on the 2d of 
June, 1841, states, the precise amount of 
the expenditures for 1840, as they appeared 
on the books of the Treasury, as follows, 
viz: 

“ The expenditures for the same year 
(1840) were for— 


Civil list, foreign intercourse 
and miscellaneous $5,492,030 98 

Military Department 10,866,246 45 


Naval Department 
Public Debt 
And outstanding warrants is¬ 
sued prior to 1st January, 
1841 

Treasury notes redeemed in¬ 
cluding interest 


6,031,088 88 
11,982 77 


1,116,334 28 
4,045,802 05 


$27,663,475 41 
Deduct from this aggregate 
sum the “Public Debt;” 
outstanding warrants, and 
Treasury notes redeemed; 
not chargeable to ordinary 
expenditures of the year 5,474,119 10 


Making the precise amount 
of ordinary expenditures 
for 1840 $22,389,356 31 


Mr. Fillmore, the late whig chairman of 
the Committee of Ways and Means, in a 
speech delivered by him in the House of 
Representatives, on the 9th of June, 1842 r 
states the ordinary expenses for that year, at 
this precise sum. 

The expenditures for 1841, stated by the 
Register of the Treasury in an official com¬ 
munication dated “Treasury Department, 
Register’s Office, February 8,1843,” are as 
follows, viz: 

Civil, miscellaneous and for¬ 
eign intercourse $6,377,153 49 

Military Establishment 13,594,796 66 

Naval Establishment 5,910,322 67 

Interest, &c., on Public Debt 99,497 84 

Redemption of Treasury notes 

including interest 5,501,190 90 

Trust funds 314,567 47 


Making the aggregate 

sum of $31,797,530 03 

Deduct from this aggregate 
sum “interest on public 
debt, Treasury Notes, 
redeemed with interest, 
and trust funds,” making 
the amount of ordinary 
expenditures for 1841 5,915,256 21 

Making the amount of or- 

dinary expenditures for 

1841 $25,882,373 82 










16 


Take from this sum the or¬ 
dinary expenditures for 
1840, as shown above 22,389,356 31 


Leaves the increase of ex¬ 
penditures for 1841 over 
1840 of $3,492,817 51 

But it may be said that a,part of the year 
of 1841, viz: from the 1st of January to the 
3d of March of that year inclusive, belong¬ 
ed to Mr. Van Buren’s administration, and 
that the present administration are only res¬ 
ponsible for the expenditures subsequent to 
the 3d of March, 1841. 

To meet this suggestion should it be 
made, I will now state from an official doc¬ 
ument—laid before the late Congress by the 
Secretary of the Treasury at its second ses¬ 
sion, Doc. No. 259—the amount which was 
expended by the party in power from the 
4th of March, Ml to the 4th of March ’42, 
viz: 


Civil, miscellaneous and for¬ 
eign intercourse $6,292,211 56 

Military Establishment 13,635,411 95 

Naval Establishment 6,300,592 95 

Treasury notes and old 

funded debt 7,038,187 91 


priations which they had made for the year. 
To this I answer, that the Congress which ex¬ 
pired on the 3d of March, ’41, did make ap¬ 
propriations which they deemed to be suffi¬ 
cient for the public service for that year.— 
With the sums thus appropriated the Whig 
party were not satisfied, but called an extra 
session of Congress together which cost the 
nation in defraying their own expenses 376,- 
477 dollars and 60 cts.—and that Congress 
at that extra session, made additional appro¬ 
priations for the service of ’41, over and a- 
bove the amount which had been deemed 
necessary by the preceding Congress, of the 
sum of 5,043,705 dollars 02 cts. 

The expenditures for ’42, as stated by 
the Register of the Treasury in an official 
communication, dated “Treasury Depart¬ 
ment, Register’s Office, February 8,1843,” 
are as follows, viz: 

Civil, miscellaneous and for¬ 
eign intercourse $6,673,978 81 

Military Establishment 8,828,894 14 

Naval Establishment 8,334,932 66 

Interest, &c., on Public Debt 4,011,059 32 

Redemption of Treas’y Notes 

including interest 8,063,709 61 

Trust funds 309,622 35 


$33,266,403 47 
Deduct from this aggregate 
sum “Treasury notes and 
old funded debt” 7,038,187 91 


Leaves the expenditures for 
one year commencing on 
the 4th of March, ’41, 
and ending on the 3d of 
March, ’43, the sum of 26,228,215 56 
Take from this sum the ex¬ 
penditures for 1840, as 
shown abov-e 22,389,356 31 


Leaves the increase of ex¬ 
penditures for the year 
ficm the 4th March, ’41, 
to the 4th March, 42, 
over the expenditures of 
’40, the sum of $3,838,859 25 

But it has been said, that the appropria¬ 
tions for ’41, were made by Mr. Van Bu- 
ren’s expiring Congress, before their adjourn¬ 
ment on the 3d of March of that year, and 
that the Whig party expended the appro- 


$32,622,196 89 
Deduct from this aggregate 
sum, “interest on Public 
Debt, redemption of Trea¬ 
sury Notes, including in¬ 
terest and trust funds” 8,783,381 28 


Leaving for ordinary expen¬ 
ditures of ’42 $23,838,815 61 

Take from this sum the ex¬ 
penditures for ’40, as 
shown above 22,389,356 31 


Leaves an increase of ex¬ 
penditures for ’42 over 
’40, of $1,449,459 30 

It will be observed too, that in the ex¬ 
penditures of’42, the item of “Interest, &.C., 
on Public Debt” is swelled up to 411,059 
dollars 32 cts—much the larger portion of 
which consists undoubtedly, of interest 
paid on the new funded debt, which the par¬ 
ty in power have created since they came 
in, which ought properly to be charged to 
them as an increased item of expenditure. 













16 


If this be done, the excess of expenditure 
for’42 over’40, will be increased by that 
sum. 

It cannot then be controverted, that the 
expenditures of ’41 and ’42, have been in¬ 
creased over those of 40. That they have 
been unnecessarily increased, is further 
manifest from the fact, that the late admin¬ 
istration contemplated and recommended a 
reduction below the expenditures of ’40.— 
The Secretary of the Treasury in this re¬ 
port made to Congress on the 7th of De¬ 
cember ’40, on the state of the finances, and 
submitting estimates of appropriation for 
’41, proposes a reduction, and assigns the 
reason why such reduction should and ought 
to be made. In that report the Secretary 
of the Treasury states: 

“It is believed that the ordinaiy expenses 
of ’41, ought to fall some millions below 
those of ’40—as the pensions have dimin¬ 
ished by deaths, fewer Indians remain to be 
removed, several expensive public buildings 
have been mostly finished, and hostilities 
with the Seminoles must be near to a close.” 

The Secretary accordingly in that report 
estimates “the expenditures for ’41—for 
ordinary purposes—if congress make no re¬ 
duction in the appropriations, requested by 
the different departments at $19,250,000.” 

This was the sum which was deemed to 
be ample for ordinary expenditures for 1841. 
The whig Congress met in extra session, 
and not only made new appropriations to 
the amount of $5,043,705 02, but they 
expended for ordinary purposes, as has been 
already shown, for 1841, the sum of $25,- 
882,273 82. 

Take from this the abeve es¬ 
timate of the expenditures 

deemed proper 19,250,000 00 


Leaves an excess of expen¬ 
diture by . the whig Con¬ 
gress-over the estimate of 
the Secretary of the Trea¬ 
sury of the sun\ of 6,632,273 82 


This is the practical application by the 
whig Congress of Mr. day’s pruning knife, 
which in his Hanover speech, he promised 
would be used in cutting down the expen¬ 
ditures of the Government. 

To evade the force of these truths which 
cannot be controverted, without falsifying 


the official records, from which they are ta¬ 
ken, some of the leading men and public 
journals of the whig party, go back to the 
commencement of Mr. Van Buren’s ad¬ 
ministration, and parade before the public, 
not the ordinary expenditures as made, but 
the gross sums, without abstracting from 
them the public debt and Treasury notes 
with interest redeemed, and the trust funds, 
which all know constitute no part of the or¬ 
dinary expenditures of the Government.— 
The chief document to wffiich they are in 
the habit of referring, is one which has of 
late become somewhat celebrated. It is 
called by them, House Document No. 31, 
laid before the House and ordered to be 
printed by Mr. Fillmore, the late whig 
Chairman of the committee of ways and 
means. From one column of that Docu¬ 
ment, they read and print the gross sums 
without deducting, as is done in another col¬ 
umn of the same document the public debt, 
Treasury notes and trust funds paid out for 
1837 and 1839. By this process they state 
the expenditures for 1837, to be 37 millions 
and a fraction; for 1838, 39 millions and a 
fraction; for 1839, 37 millions and a frac¬ 
tion ; and here they stop. But turning to 
other columns of the same table, they will 
see that the amount of “payments on ac¬ 
count of public debt and trust funds,” for 
1837, were 5,676,856 97; the same items 
for 1838 they would find were $7,911,042- 
16; and the same items for 1839, they would 
find were $12,171,219 71. By making 
those deductions, in the same way that, the 
same items (not being properly items of ex¬ 
penditure) have been deducted from the 
years 1840, 1841, and 1842, as above set 
forth, the statement stands as may be found 
in another column of the same document 
No.31-^-as follows, to wit: 

For 1837, $31,588*180 18 

For 1838, 31,544,396 19 

For 1839, 25,443,716 94 

And this same Mr. Fillmore, the late 
whig Chairman of the committee of ways 
and means, in a speech delivered by him in 
the House of Representatives, on the 9th 
of June, 1842, is compelled to make, and 
does make these corrections. But these are 
not the only deductions which are to be 
made from these years. There were caus¬ 
es of extraordinary expenditures which did 
not exist in the years 1841 and 1842 as 






It 


Stated by the Secretary of the Treasury in 
his Report of the 7th December, 1840, 
which has been already referred to. The 
chief items of an extraordinary character, 
and which do not belong to the ordinary ex¬ 
penses of every year, are the cost of Indian 
wars, the payment for Indian lands, the cost 
of removal of Indians, the erection of Cus¬ 
tom Houses in some of the principal cities, 
the erection of buildings for new Treasury 
and Patent offices, and a Penitentiary House 
at Washington. These and other extraor¬ 
dinary items amount to many millions, which 
ought to be deducted. 

Mr. John Bell of this State, in a speech 
made in Congress, as early as January 20th 
1841, admitted—that “For the service of 
the Florida war in 1838, there were appro¬ 
priated and expended, upwards of six mil¬ 
lions of dollars. This, all must admit, 
should be deducted from the ordinary ex¬ 
penditures of 1838. In confirmation of the 
admission here made, a distinguished mem¬ 
ber of Congress (Mr. John W. Jones of Va., 
late chairman of the committee of ways and 
means) on the 12th of July 1841, made a 
fair exposition of some of these items of ex¬ 
traordinary expenditures, not belonging to 
the ordinary expenditures of any year; and 
I here give it as conveying the facts, and my 
own views in as conclusive and clear a light 
as I could present them, to wit: 

“I ask if it was not in fairness due to the late 
“administration to have stated what we here all 
“know to be true.—that, while the expenditures 
“were laige, they were rendered necessary by ex¬ 
traordinary causes, which had not existed for a 
“series of years before, and are not, I trust, like- 
“ly to operate as a drain upon the Treasury here- 
“after. In confirmation of this, you have only 
“to turn your attention to the millions which 
“have been expended in the suppression of Indian 
“hostilities, and for the removal of various In- 
“dian tribes beyond our territorial limits; with 
“a view in the one case, to protect our defence- 
“less inhabitants from the cruel barbarities of a 
“savage foe—from the tomahawk and scalping 
“knife; and in the other to restore peace and 
“quiet to a large portion, of our country, who 
“had a right to claim protection at the hands of 
“this Government. Arid who is there of any par- 
“ty that would not have been willing to draw the 
“last dollar from the public Treasury if he could, 
“by such extravagance, have saved but one woman, 
“or one child, from the butchery of the savage ? 
“During the late administration there were ex¬ 
pended npon these objects .$13,714,317. The 
“further sum of G8,795,826 has been expended 
“in the purchase of land from the vari¬ 
ous Indian tribes, and in extinguishing In- 


“dian titles within the States, thus putting it in 
“our power to get rid of hordes of ruthless sav-* 
“ages, and to receive in the rich domain which 
“lias been acquired an ample equivalent. The 
“list of expenditures, also, shows that the sum of 
“$3,520,624 was applied to the erection of dura- 
“ble tire-proof buildings for the preservation of 
“the public archieves, records, &c. Sir, since you 
“and 1 have been members of this body, we have 
“been waked up at dead hours of the night from 
“our beds of rest by the alarm of the fire-bells, to 
“behold our public buildings wrapped in flames, 
“and the morning sun has risen upon the smoking 
“ruins. It has been principally to replace these 
“buildings, and to provide custom houses in our 
“large commercial cities, that this expenditure 
“has been rendered necessary.” 

These statements are verified by the pub¬ 
lic records. Make, then, the deductions of 
these and other extraordinary items and al¬ 
so of the public debt and treasury notes re¬ 
deemed, and trust funds, and the gross sums 
quoted from one column , without reference 
to the other columns of Mr. Fillmore’s cele¬ 
brated House Doc. No. 31, and it will be 
found that the ordinary expeditures for the 
years 1837, ’38 and '39, as well as 1840, 
are below Ihe ordinary expenditures for 
1841 and ’42. 

It has been vaguely and erroneously 
charged in the present canvass for Govern¬ 
or, that Mr. Van Buren found upwards of 
$31,000,000 in the treasury when he came 
into office, and that he spent or wasted it, 
and that on that account his administration 
is not entitled to credit for public debt, Trea¬ 
sury notes redeemed and trust funds. To- 
expose this error, it. is only necessary to re¬ 
fer to the report of the Secretary of the 
Treasury of the 6th Dec. 1837—in which 
the Secretary after setting forth the nominal 
ballance appearing on the books of the 
Treasury, states: 

“Before adverting to other topic.-, it will be 
proper to explain what portion of this balance 
will not immediately be either available or ap¬ 
plicable to public purpo. es.’’ 

“The first three instalments of deposited, with 
the several States, which, have recently been 
placed with them to the credit, of the Treasurer 
lor safe keeping, in conformity to the provisions 
of the act of 23d June 1836, are included in it.” 

“As the subsequent law of Oct. 14, 1837, pro¬ 
hibits the recall of these deposites, till otherwise 
directed, this large amount will till then, be una¬ 
vailable for any purposes of the General Govern¬ 
ment. It is $28,101,644 07.” 

The Secretary of the Treasury in that 
report, after enumerating other unavailable 
funds, s’ivs: 

“If the aggregate of all there, amounting to 






18 


^33^101,644 97 be deducted from the balance of 
$34,187,143 29 above mentioned, the residue of 
the public money, that, on the 1st of January 
next, will probably be then both available and 
applicable to general purposes, will be $1,085,- 
498 32.” 

There is one other fact connected with 
the expenditures for 1837, ’38 and ’39, 
which it is proper should be stated. The 
Executive at the commencement of each 
regular session of Congress, submits an es¬ 
timate of the sums deemed to be necessary 
for the service of the ensuing year. Con¬ 
gress may in their discretion appropriate less 
or more than the sums asked. It appears 
that for these years the appropriations made, 
greatly exceeded the estimates. The pre¬ 
cise amount of excess for each year may be 
seen by reference to a report made by the 
Secretary of the Treasury to Congress on 
the 2d March, 1841, being No. 226, of 
Senate Document, 2d Session 26th Con¬ 
gress. It appears from the report that the 
Executive estimated for the service of 1837, 
the sum of $22,720,107 37, that Congress 
exceeded that estimate in the appropriations, 
by the sum of $17,035,901 18. For 1838, 
the estimate was $22,735,249 19. Con¬ 
gress exceeded this sum in their appropria¬ 
tions, by the sum ©f$ 12,566,678 80. For 
1839, the estimate was $23,509 95. Con¬ 
gress exceeded this sum in their appropria¬ 
tions by the sum of $1,439,021 11. One 
cause of this increase may have been the 
extraordinary calls upon the Treasury for 
the objects already mentioned. Whatever 
the cause may have been, the fact is well 
known, that the body of the party now in 
power in Congress, and especially from the 
northern and eastern sections of the Union, 
the Journals of Congress prove, have for 
many years, as well during Gen. Jackson’s 
and Mr. Van Buren’s administrations, as du¬ 
ring the two years they have held power 
themselves, voted for the largest appropria¬ 
tions which have been made. The truth is, 
that larger expenditures constitute a part, of 
their settled policy. 

Intimately connected with the public ex¬ 
penditure is the public debt which the party 
in power have contracted within the last two 
years. The following official statements 
from the Treasury prove the precise amount 
of increase from the 4th of March 1841— 
up to the 13th February 1843. The fol¬ 


lowing are the statements from the Treasu¬ 
ry, viz: 

1. u Amount of the Public Debt on the 
4th of March, 1841.” 

“Oid'funded and unfunded debt: 

Funded debt—int. and principal, $296,642 05 

Unfunded debt—old Treasury- 
Notes 4,595 29 

Mississippi Stock 4,320 09 

Registered Debt 26,622 44—35,537 73 

Debt of the corporate cities of the 
District of Columbia, assumed 
by the United States 1,500,000 00 

Treasury Notes 5,648,512 40 


Total debt • $7,480,592 18 

Treasury Department, Register’s Office,? 

February 13, 1843. y 
T. L. SMITH, Register. 

2. Statement of the Public Debt , 13 th 
Feb. 1843. 

Old funded and unfunded debt: 

Funded debt—int. and principal $288,306 50 
Unfunded debt—old Trea¬ 
sury notes $4,314 44 

Mississippi Stock, 4,320 09 

Registered debt 26,622 44—35,259 97 

Debt of the corporate cities of the 
Distict of Columbia assumed 
by the United States 1,380,000 00 

Treasury notes 11,711,210 17 

Loan of 1841 and 1842 13,974,445 11 


Total debt $27,389,221 65 

Treasury Department, Register’s Office,? 

February 13, 1843. $ 

T. L. SMITH, Register.” 
Take the amount as here stated, on the 
4th of March 1841, from the amount on the 
13th February 1843—and the precise a- 
mount of increase of debt will be ascertain¬ 
ed—viz : 

Ain’t on the 18th Feb. 1843 $27,380,221 65 
Am’t on 4th March, 1841 7,480,592 18 


Showing the precise amount 
of increase of public debt 
to be $19,908,529 74 

And how is it possible that this plain re¬ 
cord taken from the books of the Treasury, 
can be contradicted or falsified ? And yet 
attempts are made to do this. Upon sever¬ 
al occasions during the pendency of the pre¬ 
sent gubernatorial caavass, the statement of 
an address made by a whig meeting held in 
Virginia, bas been relied on to prove that 
a distinguished member of Congress of the 
democratic party, (Mr. Charles J. Inger- 
soll, of Penn.) had admitted that the whig 
party had inherited 22 millions of this debt 
from Mr. Van Buren’s administration. This 








authority I presume will not again be relied 
on, especially after the public shall have 
seen or read the following contradiction of 
it from Mr . Ingersoll himself: 

Philadelphia, March 24, 1813. 

Sir: I am much obliged by your letter of 
the 16th instant, because it enables me thro 1 
you—you are at liberty to use this answer 
as you please—to deny and refute the to¬ 
tally unfounded statement which you inform 
me appears in the address of the whigs of 
Virginia, that I acknowledged, in an address 
to my constituents^ that the public debt at 
the close of Mr. Van Burens administration, 
was twenty-two millions of dollars.—I never 
said so, wrote so, or thought so, or any thing 
at all like such an acknowledgment- I have 
not seen the whig address you refer to, and 
have not at hand the letter to my constitu¬ 
ents to which I suppose it may allude. In 
that letter, I believe I stated the public debt 
in September, 1842, at twenty-two millions 
of dollars; which was done for the purpose 
of showing that it had risen to that amount 
in about one year after two sessions of Con¬ 
gress of whig rule; the first act of which 
Congress was for borrowing twelve millions 
of dollars, followed up afterwards by a se¬ 
cond act for borrowing five millions more, 
and then a third act for converting six mil¬ 
lions of the loan into an|issue of treasury 
notos bearing interest at six per cent., be¬ 
cause the loan could not be negotiated at 
par—one of these acts of Congress contain¬ 
ing authority hitherto unheard of in time of 
peace and plenty, to dispose of the loan un¬ 
der par. At least seventeen millions of the 
twenty-two I stated, were therefore, whig 
debts, and so I stated, and, according to 
what I have always understood and believed, 
the only debt left by Mr. Van Buren’s ad¬ 
ministration was a treasury note debt of a- 
t out five millions, which the income of the 
country would have paid off and extinguish¬ 
ed without difficulty or further appropria¬ 
tion. 

I am respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

C. J. INGERSOLL. i 

It will be seen from the official statement 
of the Register of the Treasury, that of the 
7,480,692 dollars, and 18 cents, stated to 
be the debt on the 4th of March, 1841, that 
the administration of Mr. Van Buren is only 
chargeable with the amount of Treasury 


notes outstanding, being 5,648,512 dollarjf 
and 40 cts.—the other items having descent 
ded from previous administrations. From 
this latter sum should be deducted also 572,- 
718 dollars and 46 cents, that being the 
amount stated by Mr. Ewing in his report 
to the extra session of Congress to be in the 
Treasury on the 4th March 1844, and also 
the sum of about half a million of dollars 
which was in fact in the Treasury, being the 
proceeds of one of the bonds of the late 
bank of the United States, held by the Uni¬ 
ted States, which had been paid, but which 
by mistake or omission Mr. Secretary Ewing 
in a subsequent report to the Senate of the 
United States admitted he had failed to 
state to be in the Treasury. It is now, how¬ 
ever for the first time attempted by public 
men of reputation to make it appear that 
‘appropriations’ and ‘public debt’ are synon- 
imous terms. “It has been left to these 
days of enlightened economy to make the 
discovery that this (appropriation’s is a debt.” 
An appropriation is an authority by law, to 
draw money from the Treasury and apply it 
to specified objects and purposes. By the 
Constitution no money can be “drawn from 
the Treasury but in consequence of appro¬ 
priations made bylaw.” Though the Treas¬ 
ury be overflowing, not a dollar can be drawn 
from it until an ‘appropriation’ law authori¬ 
zes it to be done. Appropriation laws are 
passed annually before Congress adjourns, 
and they constitute the authority to use or 
apply the public money to public purposes. 
And was it ever heard of before that these 
laws constitute a national or public debt? 
At the end of every year large amounts of 
appropriations remain in the Treasury unex¬ 
pended, and pass over to be expended for 
the next year. It often happens too that 
large amounts of appropriations remain un¬ 
expended for long periods of time, and in 
that case they go to the surplus fund, and 
cannot be used until a new appropriation 
law authorizing that use is passed. As had 
been the practice and was their duty, Mr. 
Van Buren’s expiring Congress passed the 
usual appropriation laws, before their ad¬ 
journment on the 3d of March, 1841, for the 
use of Gen. Harrison’s administration. If 
they had not passed them his administration 
could not have gone on, and now the amount 
of these appropriations for the current year 
and the outstanding balances of appropria- 




20 


tions are charged. I repeat, for the first time, 
by any public men of reputation to be a debt . 
Instead of calling them appropriations as 
they have always been called, they call them 
liabilities , and insist that a liability is a debt. 
By a cautiously prepared resolution passed 
by Congress in 1842, a call is made on the 
officers of the Treasury to report “the a- 
mount for which the Treasury was liable on 
the 4t,h March, 1841 —on account of appro¬ 
priations of all kinds, undrawn on that day 
&.c,”--~The Report from the Treasury tech¬ 
nically responds to the call, and states: 
“Specific appropriations of 
all kinds—undrawn on 
the 4th of March, 1841, $27,134,721 30 
Indefinite appropriations 
drawn between the 4th 
of March and 31st of De¬ 
cember, 1841, 1,771,269 46 

And by adding these items to the Treasury 
notes then outstanding they get the aggre¬ 
gate sum of $34,665,269 39; which they 
attempt to parade as a public debt. Sup¬ 
pose the same principle be applied at the 
close of Mr. Adam’s administration on the 
4th of March, 1829—the day on which Gen. 
Jackson entered on the duties of President, 
On that day the amount of undrawn appropri¬ 
ations for the services of 1829, with the un¬ 
expended balance of appropriations of for¬ 
mer years, was $26,379,941. Was this 
sum ever dreamed of as a debt inherited by 
Gen. Jackson from Mr, Adams’ administra¬ 
tion? Apply the same principle to the close 
of Gen. Jackson’s on the 4th of March, 1837 
—the day on which Mr. Van Ruren enter¬ 
ed on the duties of President. On that day 
the amount of undrawn appropriations for 
the service of 1837—with the unexpended 
balance of appropriations of former years— 
was $57,258,625. Was this a debt inher¬ 
ited by Mr. Van Bureri from Gen. Jackson’s 
administration? We all know that no na¬ 
tional debt existed at that time. Apply the 
same principle to the 4th of March of the 
present year (1843) of the whig administra¬ 
tion. If the undrawn appropriations on the 
4th of March, 1841, were liabilities and 
therefore a debt, the undrawn appropriations 
on the 4th of March, 1843, w;ere liabilities 
also and therefore a debt. On that day the 
amount of undrawn appropriations—fo. the 
year 1843—and the first, half of 1844—were 
' $29,214,185 71, De¬ 


duct appropriations for 

Post Office, 4,545,000 00 


$24,669,185 71 

Unexpended balance of ap¬ 
propriations of former 
years—as they were as¬ 
certained to be on the 
1st January, 1843, 10,412,003 00 


Making of undrawn appro¬ 
priations $35,081,188 71 

Add to this “the. public 
debt on the 13th Febru¬ 
ary, 1843” as shown by 
the official statement of 
the Register of the 
Treasury, 27,389,221 65 


Making $62,470,410 36 

So that upon the principle 
assumed by some of the 
whig party as applied to 
the 4th of March 1841, 
there were on the 4th of 
March 1843, liabilities 
or debts amounting to 
the sum of $62,470,419 36 

Deduct from this the a- 
mount of undrawn ap¬ 
propriations on the 4th 
of March, 1841, which 
they insist were liabili¬ 
ties on that day and 
therefore a debt, $34,665,269 39 

Showing upon this princi¬ 
ple an increase of liabili¬ 
ties or debt of this sum $27,805,140 97 
If the Whig' leading men be right in as¬ 
suming that undrawn appropriations consti¬ 
tute a liability on the Treasury and there^ 
fore a debt—it follows from the facts here 
stated that they found these liabilities on the 
4th March, 1841, to be $34,665,269 39 
And left the same kind of 
liabilities or debt on the 
4th of March, 1843, at $62,470,410 36 

Showing an increase of 
public debt upon this 
principle in two years, of $27,805,140 07 
If this principle be correct, every admin¬ 
istration must of necessity inherit a public 
debt from its immediate predecessors; ah 








21 


though the nation as was the case when Gen. 
Jackson retired, may be free from public 
debt and owe nothing. 

If however, the true principle prevails, 
and the records of the Treasury be true, the 
Whig party now in power, have increased 
the Public Debt by borrowing money and 
issuing Treasury notes on interest by the 
sum of §19,908,529 47, as I have already 
shown. On the other hand, if the Whig 
principle prevails they have enlarged the 
debt by $27,805,140 97. Let them there¬ 
fore select which of the two principles they 
may, they have incontrovertibly increased 
the public debt. 

I have no hesitation in expressing my con¬ 
viction, that if tire party in power had not 
disturbed the land fund by their distribu¬ 
tion, and had brought the usual quantity of 
public lands into market, instead of withhold¬ 
ing them from market, for the purpose of re¬ 
serving the proceeds for distribution; and if 
they had not disturbed the Compromise Tar¬ 
iff act of 1833—that income into the Treasu¬ 
ry would have been amply sufficient to meet 
all necessary expenditures for 1841 and ’42. 
Instead of this they have by their policy di¬ 
minished the revenue, increased the expen¬ 
ditures and increased the public debt in time 
of profound peace with all the world, at the 
rate of ten millions a year. That the next 
annual Report from the Treasury Depart¬ 
ment will show a still greater amount of pub¬ 
lic debt by an increased issue of Treasury 
notes, there is no reason to doubt. 

The Secretary of the Treasury in Decern 
ber 1840 as I have already shown, estima¬ 
ted the ordinary expenditures for 1841 at 
$19,250,000. The actual receipts for the 
hist three quarters of that year and the esti¬ 
mated receipts for the 4th quarter as shown 
by the late Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 
Forward , in his Report of 20th December, 
1841, were, independent of Treasury notes 
issued and loans made, 17,145,804 dollars 
19 cents; a sum within 2,104,195 dollars 
and 81 cents of that estimated by the Sec¬ 
retary of the Treasury in the December pre¬ 
vious, to be necessary for the service of 
1841. That there may be no doubt upon 
this point, I will give the receipts for 1841, 
as stated by Mr. Secretary Forward , in his 
Report of December 20, 1841. They are 
as follows, viz: 

‘‘Receipts into the Treasury du¬ 


ring the first three quarters of 
the present year (1841) viz : 

From Customs, 

From Lands, 

From Miscellaneous and inciden¬ 
tal sources, 

From bond of Bank of the United 
States, 

From Banks which failed in 1837, 

The receipts for the 4th quarter 
it is estimated will amount to— 
viz: * 

From Customs, 

From Lands, 

From Miscellaneous and inciden¬ 
tal sources, 

From bond of Bank of the U. S. 


$10,847,557 

44 

1,104,063 

06 

90,691 

69 

662,049 

47 

51,127 

30 


4,000.000 

00 

350,000 

00 

30,000 

00 

10,315 

23 

$17,145,804 

19 


The revenue from lands would undoubt¬ 
edly have been increased between one and 
two millions, had the usual quantity been 
offered for sale. 


I am well satisfied, if the policy of the late 
administration in regard to reduction of ex¬ 
penditures had been pursued by their suc¬ 
cessors, that the nation would now have been 
freed from the increased national debt of 
near twenty millions of dollars, which by a 
contrary policy they have within the last tw r o 
years imposed upon it. The extraordinary 
causes which led to large expenditures in 
1837, 1838 and 1839, had passed off, and 
did not exist in 1841 and 1842. 


THE TARIFF. 

Upon the subject of the tariff, I have but 
little to add to what I have heretofore often 
declared to the public. All who have ob¬ 
served my course know that I have at all 
times been opposed to the a p rotect * ve poli- 
cy.” I am for laying such moderate duties 
on imports as will raise revenue enough 
when added to the income from the sale of 
lands and other incidental sources, to defray 
the expenses of Government economically 
administered. I am in favor of a tariff for 
revenue, and opposed to a tariff for protec¬ 
tion. I was a member of Congress during 
the period that this subject excited greatest 
interest. I was opposed to the protective 
tariff*of 1828 and voted against it. I voted 
for the act of 1832—because it reduced the 
tariff of 1828 to lower rates. That made 
some reduction though not as much as I de¬ 
sired to have made. 1 voted for the act of 





March 2d, 1833 (commonly called the com¬ 
promise act) which reduced the rates of the 
act of 1832 to still lower rates, and finally 
brought the rates of the act of 1832 down to 
a point at which no article was after the 30th 
of June 1842 to be subject to a duty higher 
than 20 per cent. This was the law when 
tire whig Congress came into power. By 
the tariff act of the 30th August 1842, the 
compromise act was violated and repealed. 
I am opposed to the act of 1842, not regar¬ 
ding it to be a revenue tariff, but in many of 
its provisions highly protective and oppres¬ 
sive in its character. I am in favor of the 
restoration of the compromise act of 1833. 

The condition of the country at the time 
the compromise act of 1833 was passed can 
never be forgotten. Its effect in allaying the 
excitement which threatened the most de 
structive consequences, was instantaneous. 
Whilst it was pending before Congress, Mr. 
Clay in a speech declared: 

“But if the measure should be carried by the 
common consent of both parties, we shall have all 
security. History will faithfully record the trans¬ 
action—narrate under what circumstances the 
bill was passed; that it was a pacifying measure; 
that it was as oil poured from the vessel of the Un¬ 
ion, to restore peace and harmony to the country. 
When all this was known, what Congress—what 
Legislature would mar the guarantee? Whatman 
wild is entitled to deserve the character an Ameri¬ 
can statesman , would stand up in his place in either 
House of Congress and disturb the treaty of peace 
and amity V' 

Such was the language of Mr. Clay upon 
the introduction of the Compromise Bill. 
It passed “by the common consent of both 
parties;” it did “restore peace and harmony 
to the country” and on all sides it was held 
“sacred as a treaty of peace and amity” un¬ 
til the whig party came into power. 

Mr. Clay in a speech made at Buffalo, in 
New York, in July, 1830, declared: 

“The compromise of the tariff was proposed to 
preserve our manufactures from impending ruin, 
menaced by the administration of Gen. Jackson, 
and would avert from the Union the threatened 
danger of civil war. If the compromise be invio¬ 
lably maintained, as I think it ought to be, I trust 
that the rate of duty for which it provides, in con¬ 
junction with the stipulation for cash duties, 
home valuations and the long list of free articles 
inserted for the benefit of the manufacturing in¬ 
terest, will insure it reasonable and adequate 
protection.” 

Again Mr. Clay in his Hanover speech 
in Virginia, on the 27th of June, 1840, de¬ 


clared liis intention to adhere to the com- 
promise act in the following terms: 

“The question cannot be, ought not be one of 
principle, but of measure and degree. I adopt 
that of the compromise act, not because that act 
is irrepealable, but because it met with the sanc¬ 
tion of a natiou. Stability with moderate and 
certain protection is far more important than in¬ 
stability, the necessary consequences of high pro¬ 
tection. But the protection of the compromise 
act will be adequate in most if not as to all inter¬ 
ests. The 20 per cent, which it stipulates cash 
duties, home valuations and the list of free arti¬ 
cles inserted in the act, for the particular advan¬ 
tage of the manufacturers will insure, I trust, suf¬ 
ficient protection.—Altogether they will amount 
probably to not less than 30 per cent.” 

And after these and many other similar 
promises made by the leading members of 
the whig party in this and other States, the 
late whig Congress have violated and re¬ 
pealed it. 

In a speech delivered by me at Pulaski, 
on the 20th September 1842, in reference 
to this subject, I used the following lan¬ 
guage, viz: 

“When the compromise act of 1833 was passed, 
every interest in the country stood pledged in the 
most solemn manner to adhere to and abide by it. 
It was hoped that this agitated and disturbing 
subject was put to rest for a long series of years, if 
not forever.” 

Had the late administration continued in. 
power, it was certain that we should not 
now be witnessing the revival of this contro¬ 
versy. In the Presidential canvass of 1840, 
both parties stood pledged to preserve and 
maintain the compromise act. General 
Harrison himself, in his Zanesville letter 
declared: “I am for supporting the compro¬ 
mise act, and never will agree to its being 
altered or repealed;” and in his letter to 
Mr. Senator Berrien, of Georgia, he declar¬ 
ed himself to the same effect, and added: 
“Good faith and the peace and harmony of 
the Union, do in my opinion, require that 
the compromise of the tariff, known as Mr. 
Clay’s bill, should be carried out according 
to its spirit and intention.” In the discus¬ 
sions which took place in this State not only 
during the Presidential contest of 1840, but 
also in the canvass of last year, all the ora¬ 
tors of that party stood solemnly pledged 
that it should never be disturbed. But like 
all the federal pledges made before the elec¬ 
tion, this too had been violated, shamefully 
violated and disregarded. He had himsel f 
suspected as much, and from a long ac- 




23 


equaintance with most of the prominent men 
now in power, he was so well satisfied that 
they intended to break up the compromise, 
that he had charged all over the state du¬ 
ring the last year, and so charged i.i a pub¬ 
lished address to the people; that one object 
of the proposition to distribute the proceeds 
of the public lands among the States, w T as 
to afford a pretext for violating it by increas¬ 
ing the tariff above the maximum rate of 20 
per cent, ad valorem, which it prescribed. 
He had charged further that the deficit cre¬ 
ated by the withdrawal of the land money, 
would be supplied by a tax on articles of 
necessity. This was denied and the people 
were told that no man in Tennessee would 
be taxed one cent; that the compromise act 
would be preserved inviolate, and the defi¬ 
cit produced by the withdrawal of the land 
money would be made up by a tax on silks 
and wines and other luxuries, such as the 
rich used, and the poor could not afford. 
Many in the crowd present, and thousands 
in the State, he was sure would remember 
this. And now how stands the fact? The 
compromise act had been violated. All the 
pledges made before the election to pre¬ 
serve it had been disregarded. A tariff bill 
imposing enormous duties on many articles 
of prime necessity, far exceeding the rates 
of the compromise act had been passed. 
Was this necessity for revenue? It was 
'demonstrable that it was not, and that its 
object was not revenue , but protection. Mr. 
Secretary Ewing in his report of the 2d of 
June, 1841, estimated that the rates author¬ 
ised by the compromise act, by which the 
duty on no article was to exceed 20 per 
cent., ad valorem, would yield to the Treas¬ 
ury annually $20,800,000, and he said the 
"‘‘revenues which will accrue from that or 
nearly proximate rate of duty, will be suffi¬ 
cient to defray the expenses of the Govern¬ 
ment and leave a surplusand “leave also 
the proceeds of the public lands to be dis¬ 
posed of as Congress shall think fit.”—The 
average income from the lands for a series 
of years, had been about $3,000,000 annu¬ 
ally. This sum added to the $20,000,000 
estimated to accrue from imposts ijnder the 
compromise would make an aggregate an¬ 
nual revenue of $23,000,000 without dis¬ 
turbing the compromise act, a sum exceed¬ 
ing near a million and a half of dollars, 
that expended in the last year (1840) of Mr. 


Van Buren’s Administration. It was clear 
therefore upon the showing of their own Sec¬ 
retaries of the Treasury at the commence¬ 
ment of their power that it was not necessary 
even without the land money and much less 
with it, to raise duties above .the rates au¬ 
thorised by the compromise act for the pur¬ 
pose of revenue. 

In the late tariff act which they had pass¬ 
ed, how had they kept their pledge that lux¬ 
uries and not necessaries were to be taxed? 
That too like all their pledges had been vi¬ 
olated.—The late tariff act imposed not on¬ 
ly increased but enormous duties upon ma¬ 
ny articles of the first necessity, and upon 
some of them, duties so high as to greatly 
diminish and in some cases prohibit their 
importation into the country altogether, thus 
cutting off instead of increasing revenue 
from them. A slight inspection of the act 
itself would prove the fact to be so. He 
would enumerate a few articles with the tax 
imposed upon them by a new law, as speci¬ 
mens from which its general character could 
be seen. And whilst he did this, let it be 
borne in mind, that whilst many articles un¬ 
der the compromise act were taxed lower 
than 20 per cent on their value, none were 
allowed to be taxed higher than that rate. 
The late tariff act imposed a tax of 8 cents 
per bushel of 56 pounds on salt; 2£ cents 
per. pound on brown sugar; 4 cents per 
square yard on cotton bagging; 5 cents per 
yard on gunny-cloth, an article frequently 
used as a substitute for cotton bagging; on 
anvils, blacksmith’s hammers and sledges, 
2£ cents per pound; on mill saws, cross-cut 
saws, and pit saws, one dollar each; on axes, 
adzes, hatchets, plane irons, socket chisels 
and vices, drawing knives, sickles or reap¬ 
ing hooks, scythes, spades or shovels, and 
iron chains, 30 per cent on the value: on bar 
iron not made by rolling $17 and if made by 
rolling $25 per ton; on pig iron $9 per ton; 
on flannels 14 cents per square yard; on man¬ 
ufactures of wool 40 per ct. on the value; on 
manufactures of cotton 30 per cent on the val¬ 
ue. He might enumerate many other arti¬ 
cles, even down to pins, and sewing, knitting 
and darning kneedles, but those mentioned 
would sufficiently illustrate the general pro¬ 
tective, and in regard to some articles prohib¬ 
itory character of the tax imposed on many ar¬ 
ticles, which could be but imperfectly seen 
by the bare enumeration he had made. 



34 

The art contained in regard to some ar¬ 
ticles of general consumption, what manu¬ 
facturers call the minimum principle , by 
which the article taxed was assumed to be 
worth more than it really cost, and the tax 
imposed on such assumed value. He would 
take tire article of cotton goods to illustrate 
the practical operation of this principle.— 
The late tariff act as we had seen, imposed 
a duty of 30 per cent on the value of cot¬ 
ton goods, but the act also provided that all 
cotton goods not dyed, colored, painted or 
stained, not exceeding in value 20 cents per 
square yard, shall be valued at 20 cents and 
taxed accordingly; and all cotton goods 
which were either dyed, colored printed or 
stained, among which were calicoes in such 
general use, not exceeding in value 30 cents, 
should be estimated to have cost 30 cents 
per square yard and taxed accordingly.— 
Take the article of prints, including cali¬ 
coes, and what was the tax levied on them? 
Any importing merchant would tell us that 
the coarser descriptions of the article could 
be bought in the foreign market for from 5 
to 8 cents per square yard and perhaps 
lower. Suppose a merchant to import a bolt 
of such goods. When he arrived in this 
country with it he produced his invoice to 
the custom house officer, showed him that 
the article cost him in the foreign market, 5 
cents per square yard. He would be an¬ 
swered by the officer and told: we are re¬ 
quired by the tariff law to consider that it 
cost you 30 cents instead of 5 cents, and 
must levy a duty of 30 per cent on 30 cents 
value instead of 5 cents value; that Is, six 
times as much tax would be levied on 5 cts., 
the real cost, making 180 per cent duty in¬ 
stead of 30 per cent. 

The consequence would be that all cot¬ 
ton goods of the coarser description costing 
under 30 cents per square yard, must either 
be prohibited entirely or brought in at a 
greatly increased price to the consumer.— 
And this was one of the contrivances resort¬ 
ed to, to cheat the people and to enable the 
home manufacturer to raise the prices and 
charge the consumers more for similar arti¬ 
cles which he made. This was called pro¬ 
tection ; protection ro the northern manufac¬ 
turer, at the expense of all who bought and 
consumed cotton goods. 

A tax was levied by the law of 8 cents 
per bushel of 56 pounds on imported salt.— 


This was done to protect the interests of <i 
few wealthy salt-makers in the United States, 
by enabling them to sell the salt which they 
made at higher prices, and all who used salt 
were compelled to pay the tax. Foreign 
salt could be brought in and sold at our ports 
at from 10 to 12£ cents on the bushel, if it 
were free of duty. 

Brown sugar was taxed cents per pound; 
and for whose protection was this? Whilst 
all the people of the United States were 
consumers of sugar, it was well known that 
but a small part of one State and one Terri¬ 
tory in the United States produced Sugai. 
It was equally well known that the Sugar 
planters were generally very wealthy men, 
were the owners of large estates in lands 
and slaves, and it was for their protection, 
and by enabling them to sell their sugar at 
higher prices that this tax was laid. Foreign 
brown sugar could be brought into our ports 
and after paying freight and charges, could 
be sold without the duty, at 4 cents per lb., 
or less; upon its arrival it was taxed 2£ cts., 
raising the price to the purchaser or consu¬ 
mer to cents per pound, or at the rate of 
62£ per cent on its value. The sugar plant¬ 
er would of course raise the price of his ar¬ 
ticle to that of the foreign, after the tax was 
laid on it. It might seem strange that the 
woolen, cotton and other manufacturers, 
who were the consumers of such articles as 
salt and sugar, should agree to tax tfyem,but. 
it would not be so when it was remembered, 
that there must always be a combination of 
interest when a high protective tariff law 
was passed. The Sugar and Salt men for 
example would agree in turn to vote a tax 
on Woolens and Cottons; and it was by 
combination such as. these, that majorities 
were ever commanded in Congress, to pass- 
these unequal and oppressive laws. 

For the purpose of making plain the op¬ 
pressive operation of the present high tariff, 
I will trace its effects in taking money out 
of the pockets of the consumers of brown 
sugar, and put'ing it into the pockets of the 
manufacturers, of this article. From the 
commercial tables made out at the treasury 
department, it is ascertained that in 1840, 
the quantity of brown sugar imported into the 
United States was 107,953,033 lbs. By the 
present tariff, every pound so imported must 
pay into the treasury 2| cents, making $2, 
698,320, the nett amount of revenue to be 



55 


collected from this article, taking the im¬ 
portation of ’40 as tiie standard. This a- 
mount must be paid in cash by the importer 
before he can bring his sugar into our mar¬ 
ket. What then has the consumer to pay ? 
First—he must pay the 24 cents on every 
pound; second he must pay the profit, which 
the importer charges on the advancement of 
cash, which I presume is never less than 10 
per cent; and third, he must pay the retail¬ 
or’s profit which is at least 20 per cent. So 
that this account will stand thus: 

The consumers will pay the duty 
of 24 cents per lb. $2,698,320 

Importers profit of 10 per cent 269,832 

Retailers profit of 20 per cent 539,764 


$3,507,916 

The amount therefore paid by the consu¬ 
mers of brown sugar brought into the coun¬ 
try, above the amount which they would 
pay if there was no tariff is over three mil¬ 
lions and a half of dollars, and of this amount 
$2,698,320 goes into the treasury. But the 
brown sugar imported and that manufactur¬ 
ed in this country sell at the same price. 
Whatever amount is imposed as a tax on the 
imported article is added by our manufac¬ 
turers to the price of the same article man¬ 
ufactured in the U. States. By reference to 
the census tables it is found that there was 
manufactured in the United States in 1840, 
about 125,000,000 lbs. of brown sugar. The 
tariff enables the manufacturers to add 2£ 
cents on every pound, and 10 per cent on 
this to correspond with the importer’s profit, 
and 20 per cent to correspond with the re¬ 
tailer’s profit—the account tfill stand thus ! 
The consumer will pay 2$ cents 

per lb. $3,125,000 

For importer’s and retailer’s 

profits 937,500 


$4,062,500 

Amount to raise revenue on im¬ 
ported sugar 3,506,916 


Whole amount paid by consum¬ 
ers $7,570,416 

The whole amount paid by consumers of 
brown sugar is more than seven and a half 
millions of dollars, above the amount they 
would pay if there was no tariff. And of 
this amount only $2,698,320 goes into the 
treasury, and $4,672,146 into the pockets 

D 


of the sugar makers, importers and retailers 
Estimating brown sugar to be worth 4 cents 
per lb. at the ports where imported, the tar¬ 
iff of 24 cents per lb. is about 62 per cent, 
or three times as great as it would have been 
under the compromise act. It is easy then 
to see the extent of protection extended to 
the sugar makers, and the amount of oppres¬ 
sion imposed upon the farmers and mechan¬ 
ics who consume this article. 

I have given this calculation merely to 
illustrate the effect of the present tariff. By 
a simple process of calculation any one can 
estimate the effects produced bv the tax up¬ 
on the other necessaries of life, such as 
woollen goods, cotton goods, bar iron and 
salt—they are equally unjust and oppressive. 
To enable every man to make the calcula¬ 
tion on these four leading articles of neces¬ 
sity, I give the following facts from the com¬ 
mercial and census tables. 

In 1840 there was imported into the Uni¬ 
ted States—woollen goods, worth $6,226,- 
639. Cotton goods, worth $6,504,484. Bar 
iron, (61,132 tons) $3,397,480. Salt (8,- 
183,426 bushels) $1,015,426. 

In the. year U 40 there was manufactured 
in the United States—woollen goods 20,- 
696,999 dols. Cotton goods 46,350,453 
dols. Bar iron, (197,233 tons) 5,916,990 
dols.—Salt (6,179,424 bushels) 772,378 
dollars. 

In order to show lhat the tariff passed by 
the late Congress is not a revenue measure, 
in a late speech delivered at Jackson, and 
published, I used the following language: 

“No higher than 20 per cent iru s imposed 
on any article, after the 30th of June ’42, 
until the 30th of August, ’42, on which lat¬ 
ter day the present tariff law was passed by 
the whig Congress. The whig Congress 
laid violent hands on the Compromise of’33, 
and broke it up; They raised the tariff as 
high and upon many articles higher than the 
rates which existed when the compromise 
act was passed. That it was so high as to 
be prohibitory on some, and highly protective 
upon many articles of necessity and common 
use, was proved by the fact, that under its 
operation, die revenue to die Treasury from 
imports had been greatly diminished. The 
Secretary of the Treasury in his annual re¬ 
port to Congress in December last, states 
diat “the period within which the tariff had 
been in operation, has been much too short 











to ftimish any decisive evidence as to its per¬ 
manent influence on importations. The 
foreign trade of the country has continued 
to decline, and importations have been com¬ 
paratively small since the passage of the act. 
How far this state of things may have been 
influenced by the existing system of duties, 
it is impossible to determine.” An official 
Report from the Secretary of the Treasury 
to Congress, of the 16th February, 1843, 
sets forth the accruing duties on imports 
during the several quarters of the year ’42 
—from which it appears that the accruing 
duties on imports, during the 1st quarter 
of that year, that is to say, for the months of 
January, February and March , and whilst 
the compromise act was in operation and 
had reached its lowest point of valuation 
save one, was 6,060,401 89: and that the 
accruing duties on imports, during the last 
quarter of that year, that is to say, for the 
months of October , November and Decem¬ 
ber , under the operation of the existing tar¬ 
iff law, was $2,579,389 28: It appeared 
therefore, that though the duties were rais¬ 
ed to a very high rate under the existing 
tariff' act of the whig Congress—such had 
been the falling off’in the amount of imports, 
during the last quarter of 1842, that the rev¬ 
enue derived from the customs, was near 
half a million less than half what they were 
during the first quarter of’42, when the low¬ 
est duties of the compromise act of ’33 were 
in force. It was clear therefore that the late 
tariff act was not a revenue measure. It 
had raised the rates of duties so high as to 
shut out imports and consequently to cut off 
and diminish revenue.” 


BANK OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 

My opinions in reference to a National 
Bank have been so fully and frequently ex¬ 
pressed in public letters and speeches that 
no man can have the least difficulty in as¬ 
certaining them. I shall therefore content 
myself with doing little more than quoting 
a part of what I said at Pulaski on the 29th 
of September, 1842, on the Bank question. 
In that speech which was extensively pub¬ 
lished in the newspapers, I said: 

“One of the greatest difficulties which the 
opponents of a bank had had to encounter in 
this State, had been in meeting the vague 
generalities in which the bank advocates 
had dealt. They all, with perhaps rare ex¬ 


ceptions, professed to condemn and oppos# 
the late Bank of the United States, or any 
other Bank organized on similar principles. 
They would say, we are opposed to the old 
Bank , but we are in favor of a Batik with 
suitable restrictions and modifications.— 
What these modifications and restrictions 
were they would not specify. They talked 
of them in general and vague terms, but 
their plan of a bank they did not and would 
not give. Some, to be sure, had in their 
minds an uncertain and undefined notion of 
the plan of a bank with which they would bo 
pleased—such as that there should be no pri¬ 
vate stockholders, and that it should be 
owned by the General Government and the 
States. Many honest men had been made 
to think that a proper sort of bank might be 
framed that might be useful. 

He said he regarded it as fortunate in the 
future discussions of the subject that the 
party advocating a Bank, in this State at 
least, had at length been diiven from their 
vague generalities. They had brought in 
and passed a Bank charter at the extra session 
of Congress. Mr. Clay was its author. 
President Tyler vetoed it, and because he 
had done so, they had denounced him as a 
traitor, and had burnt and hung him in effi¬ 
gy. If President Tyler had signed that bill 
they said the whole scheme of Federal meas¬ 
ures would have been complete. That bill, 
then, we must presume contained the plan 
of a bank, and to get it they are now prepar¬ 
ed to elect Henry Clay President of the 
United States. 

Now what was that bill, and what was 
the kind of Bank which they promised by 
it to the country, if they continued another 
Presidential term in power? A slight in¬ 
spection of its provisions would show that 
it was an old fashoned incorporated stock 
bank, to be owned in part and in fact controll¬ 
ed by private stockholders, retaining all the 
bad features of the late bank, and embrac¬ 
ing others that made it even more objection¬ 
able than that Bank, bad as that was. ltd 
capital stock was to be thirty millions of 
dollars, with power reserved to increase it 
to 50 millions after the year 1850. One 
third of the capital stock, or ten millions of 
dollars, was to be subscribed for by the Uni¬ 
ted States, and two-thirds, or twenty millions 
of dollars, was to be subscribed for by in¬ 
dividuals. companies, corporations or States. 




The ten millions of dollars to be subscribed 
by the United States, was to be raised by 
borrowing the money. A Public debt of 
Ten Millions of Dollars was by the charter 
authorized to be created, and for that pur¬ 
pose a public stock of the United States was 
to be issued, bearing interest at. the rate of 
five per centum per annum which was not 
to be paid until after the expiration of fifteen 
years. This loan must most probably, we 
might safely say certainly, have been made 
from foreigners—thus presenting a nation of 
seventeen millions of freemen in the hu¬ 
miliating, if not degrading attitude of bor¬ 
rowing money on interest from foreigners to 
make a bank upon. The interest on the 
loan which was to be paid half yearly, was 
five hundred thousand dollars a year, and 
would have amounted for the fifteen years 
(sooner than the expiration of which it could 
not be redeemed) to seven millions five hun¬ 
dred thousand dollars. The Bank was to 
be located at Washington city and was to be 
governed by nine directors, three of whom 
were to be appointed by the United States 
and six by the private stockholders. All 
know that six would control three—so that 
the bank itself would in fac t have been un¬ 
der the absolute control of the private stock¬ 
holders. Indeed this seemed to have been 
designed by the charter itself, for it was pro¬ 
vided that “not less than five directors shall 
constitute a board for the transaction of bu¬ 
siness, of whom ihe President shall always 
be one, and at least three of the five shall be 
of the directors elected by the stockholders.” 
—This provision made it absolutely impos¬ 
sible even in a thin board,for the three Gov¬ 
ernment directors, in any possible case, to 
constitute a majority. The principal board 
were empowered to appoint the directors or 
managers of the branches.—The public mo¬ 
ney was directed to be deposited with the 
bank, and as a considerable amount of it 
would necessarily be always on hand, it 
would be used and traded upon as banking 
capital. The taxes paid by the people for 
the support of Government, would constitute 
i a part of the Banking capital, to be loaned 
out, and upon which the private stockhold¬ 
ers would make profit. This was the out¬ 
line of Mr. Clay’s Bank Bill which Presi¬ 
dent Tyler vetoed. He had searched in 
vain through its provisions for those restric¬ 
tions and limitations which were so often 


and so vaguely spoken of, and which were 
to prevent it from running into all the cor¬ 
ruptions and abuses of the late Bank of the 
United States. The United States was 
made by this charter to go into partnership 
with the private stockholders, to place all 
her revenues in the concern, and was yet 
placed in a minority in the Directory, and 
was therefore deprived of all power of con¬ 
trol over them. Who would probably have 
become the private stockholders in such a 
bank ? In the west and south, where there 
was but little surplus capital, and where mo¬ 
ney bore high rates of interest, but little if 
any would have been taken. Scarcely a 
share of the stock in the late bank of the 
United States was at any time owned in 
Tennessee. There could be no doubt but 
that much the larger portion of it would 
have eitiier been taken at first or been ultimr 
ately owned by the Federalists of the nor¬ 
thern and eastern sections of the Union, 
who were the larger capitalists of the coun¬ 
try. This was the case with the old bank. 
And though stock could not be taken di¬ 
rectly by foreigners, there was no doubt but 
that much of it would have been ultimately 
held by them under coyer of secret trusts in 
the name of others. He* could not doubt 
that if it had been established it would have 
soon become an immense political engine 
of deadly hostility to the purity of elections 
and to the liberties of the people, and would 
have been wielded by a corrupt fiiction, as 
was the late bank of the United States, and 
for the worst of purposes. The thanks of 
the country, he had no hesitation in saying,, 
were due to President Tyler for having ar¬ 
rested it as he did by his veto. 

It will be seen from the foregoing outline 
of the charter of the Bank passed at the Ex¬ 
tra Session of 1841, that in all its leading 
features it was similar to the late Bank of 
the United States—Mr. Clay took the late U. 
S. Bank as his model and he succeeded in 
securing its passage, similar in all its essen¬ 
tial provisions to that ill fated institution, and 
in syme of them worse even than that Bank, 
bad as it was. The plan of a National 
Bank with which the people of Tennessee 
have been deluded by the Whig orators was 
not once thought of by Mr. Clay and his 
friends. They never will consent to any 
other than a stock Bank in which individu¬ 
als shall have the control. Those who in- 







pulge the hope that any other kind of Bank 
will ever be acceptable to the Whig leaders 
are destined to continual disappointments. 

On this subject I reiterate what I said in 
my Pulaski speech. Speaking of Mr. Clay's 
Bank I said—“Was this the kind of bank 
which the body of the party in this State 
wanted ? He thought he could answer with 
certainty that it was not. And yet this was 
Mr. Clay’s Bank, and to get it they were 
no\y told by leading public men and news¬ 
papers, they must vote for him to be Presi¬ 
dent of the United States. He did not deem 
it necessary, and if he did time would not 
allow him to enter upon the general discus¬ 
sion of the bank question and the currency 
on that occasion. He would only add that 
neither a National Bank nor any other Bank 
could prevent commercial revulsions or fur¬ 
nish a remedy against hard times. When 
we had a national bank we had witnessed 
such times, and when we had none we had 
witnessed them. 

He appealed to the party in this State 
who advocated the establishment of a Na¬ 
tional Bank to know if they would be wil¬ 
ling to take a bank, and especially such a 
bank as Mr. Tyler had vetoed, if they had 
to take with it all the other obnoxious meas¬ 
ures of the Federal party. Mr. Clay had 
declared in his speech against the repeal of 
the Bankrupt law, that all the measures of 
the Extra Session constituted one entire sys¬ 
tem, and that no part of it must be invaded 
or destroyed. Were the bank party in this 
State ready to support this entire system? 
Were they willing, for the sake of getting 
such a bank as that which had been pro¬ 
posed, to support the Bankrupt law, the dis¬ 
tribution, the public debt, the protective ta¬ 
riff, and increased appropriations and ex¬ 
penditures?? Many of them he knew were 
opposed to some, and others to all these 
measures. He had heard many of them 
declare that they never would vote for any 
man for. any public cilice who had voted for 
or was in favor of the bankrupt law; and yet 
if they voted for Mr. Clay in the delusive 
hope of getting a Bank, they would vote for 
such a man and would be virtually voting to 
keep the bankrupt law in force. And so 
if they voted for him they would be virtual¬ 
ly voting for the protective tariff law and all 
the other measures which he had enumera¬ 
ted and which they disapproved 


It was a delusive hope that a National 
Bank could, if established, afford relief to 
the indebted classes—but if it could, how 
long must those who were now indebted 
wait for it ? It was certain that rto bank char¬ 
ter could be passed during Mr. Tyler’s time. 
His term w 7 ould not expire before the 4th of 
March, 1845, a period of near two and a 
half years. And even should his successor 
be favorable to a bank, which was most im¬ 
probable, still, before a bank bill could be 
passed, there must, be majorities in favor of 
it in both Houses of Congress, which was 
equally improbable, i Should the president 
and both Houses of Congress be found to 
be favorable to the establishment of a Bank, 
Congress would not. convene in regular ses¬ 
sion before December 1845, and no action 
could probably be had upon the subject ear¬ 
lier. than the spring of the following year. 
It would require a year or more from that 
time to put it in operation; so that upon 
the most favorable view which they could 
take of it, it would be sometime in the year 
1847 before it could go into operation. He 
asked all those who were now indebted and 
looked to a bank to relieve them, if they 
could w T ait five years. Should it do all that 
they vainly hope it would, would it not 
come too late for them? In the meantime 
the bankrupt law, the protective tariff, and 
other ruinous and oppressive measures of 
the federal rulers would be in full force and 
operation.” 

His deliberate opinion was that if Mr. 
Clay’s bank bill of the extra session had 
passed, that the pressure and tightness of the 
money market would have been greater 
than they now were. They were quite as 
great when he had such a bank in 1819 and 
’29; the price of property was as low, and 
our local Stale currency was ruinously be¬ 
low par. Now what circulation we had was 
of par funds. Our banks now paid specie 
and he trusted nothing would occur to de¬ 
base their circulation or to induce the banks 
themselves to depart from the specie paying 
policy which they were now pursuing. At 
the period referred to, and when we had a 
National Bank, nothing was more common 
in many of the States—-and States too, in 
which branches were located—than the pas¬ 
sage of relief laws. This proved that the 
late bank did not and could not alleviate or 
i prevent the pressure and embarrassment 





which then existed. Nor could a new bank, 
if now established do what the old bank 
could not. But if the bank advocates think 
it could, still it was now certain that they 
could not get it into operation in less than 
five years, and before that time the crisis 
will have come with a large majority of the 
present debtors. 

Wide differences of opinion have been 
expressed by leading men of the whig par¬ 
ty, at different periods* in regard to the in¬ 
fluence which a Bank of the United States 
could have in preventing commercial revul¬ 
sions, or pecuniary pressure—and in pro¬ 
ducing prosperity in the country. Among 
these I notice the conflicting opinions of my 
present competitor (Gov. Jones) as expres¬ 
sed in his message to the Legislature in 
October, 1842—and of Mr. Clay, as ex¬ 
pressed in his speech in Congress, in favor 
of the Tariff in 1824. 

Governor Jones in his message of Octo¬ 
ber, 1842, declares that during the exist¬ 
ence of the Bank of the United States, as 
far as our monetary affairs were concern- 
. ed, all was calm and quiet. The prices of 
property and the products of labor were 
firm and steady—labor received its just re¬ 
ward, and the march of the country to pros¬ 
perity was firm and decided.” 

Mr. Clay in his speech on the Tariff Bill 
in Congress, in 1824—more than six years 
after the late Bank of the United State had 
been in operation—-entertained contrary 
opinions from these and bore a different tes- 
I timony. Mr. Clay in that speech said: “In 
casting our eyes around us, the most promi- 
j nent circumstance which fills our attention 
I and challenges our deepest regret, is the 
I general distress which 'pervades t;he whole 
Country. It is indicated by the diminished 
exports of native produce—by the depres¬ 
sed and reduced state of our foreign naviga- 
l tion—by our diminished commerce— by 
I successive untlireshed crops of grain , per - 
| ishing in our barns and yards for want of 
I a Market —by the alarming diminution of 
I our circulating medium—by the numerous 
bankruptcies, not limited to the trading cias- 
ses, but extended to all classes of society— 
by an universal complaint of want of em¬ 
ployment, and a consequent reduction of 
the wages of labor—by the ravenous pur¬ 
suit after public stations, not for the sake of 
honors and performance of their duties, but 


as a means of pritate subsistence-—by the 
reluctant resort to the perilous use of pa¬ 
per money—by the intervention of legisla¬ 
tion in the delicate relation between bebt- 
ors and creditors—and above all, by the low 
and depressed state of value of almost ev¬ 
ery description of the whole mass of pro¬ 
perty of the nation, which has on an ave¬ 
rage sunk not less than fifty per cent , within 
a few years* 

Governor Jones and Mr. Clay cannot both 
be right. At the time Mr. Clay made his- 
speech in 1824, the bank was in full opera¬ 
tion, and yet it had not prevented the state 
of things which he describes. 

Judge White in his speeches against the 
Bank in the Senate of the United States in 
1832 and ’34, confirms the statement of Mr. 
Clay in ’24, so far as file pecuniary suffer¬ 
ing and distress of the country were con¬ 
cerned. lie describes the sufferings of the 
people during the existence of that Bank, 
in strong and forcible terms. He gives it as 
his opinion, that “this Bank then, is the 
main cause of this suffering and this dis¬ 
tress, and to relieve them, we are asked to 
extend its power six years longer,” * * 

“I have no confidence in such a remedy 
—it will probably be worse than the pres¬ 
ent disease.” Such was the testimony, and 
such the opinions of Judge White. The 
public, and especially the aged men, will re¬ 
member how the facts, were. 

The reasons mainly urged for the estab¬ 
lishment of a National Bank, are that it will 
regulate exchanges, that it will powerfully 
contribute to the resumption of specie pay¬ 
ments by the State Banks, and that it will 
operate, as a relief measure of making mo¬ 
ney plenty. 

The two first named reasons have ceased 
to have any force in them. The natural 
operations of trade have regulated the ex¬ 
changes, so that they are now in as good a 
condition as it is possible for them to be.— 
This has been effected by the laws of trade 
which will never fail to correct any irregu¬ 
larity in exchanges if they are not interfer¬ 
ed with by unwise legislation. 

When Mr. Clay reported the Bank Bill 
at the extra session, he said in his report— 
“It (the Bank) will powerfully contribute to 
the resumption of specie payments by the 
State Banks whose existing delinquency is 
the greatest source of oil prevailing pecuni- 





ary and financial embarrassments.” The 
State Banks in almost all the States have 
resumed specie payments, and therefore ac¬ 
cording to Mr. Clay “the greatest source of 
pecuniary embarrassment” is removed.— 
This has been effected too without the aid 
of a National Bank, so that we now have 
two important questions of currency settled. 
A Bank of the United States is not neces¬ 
sary to regulate exchanges. A Bank is not 
necessary to enable suspended State Banks 
to resume specie payments. 

But it is still said that a National Bank 
Ought to be created to relieve the distres¬ 
ses of the people. It becomes those who 
are indulging the hope that a National Bank 
can relieve them from pressure to calculate 
the chances on which their hopes are based. 
In no event can a Bank be chartered before 
1845. Will die relief then be in time?— 
But how could a Bank give relief? It is 
said it would increase the circulation—but 
the question is, how much will the circula¬ 
ting medium be increased by a National Bank 
with a capital of thirty millions of dollars? 
I presume that a reference to the amount of 
the circulation of the late United States 
Band with a capital of thirty-five millions 
will be the surest guide in deciding this 
question. The returns made by the late 
Bank of the United States, show that during 
the first five years of its existence, its aver¬ 
age annual circulation was a little less than 
five millions of dollsrs! That during the 
period of the next five years from 1822 and 
’26 inclusive, its average circulation was 
about six millions of dollars—that during 
the next five years, from 1827 to ’31 inclu¬ 
sive, the circulation averaged about eleven 
millions and a half—that in ’32 when it 
was buying up public favor to get a re-char- 
ter, its circulation was about twenty-one 
millions—and that in 1835, die year when 
its charter expired, it was about twenty-three 
millions. If we suppose that the proposed 
new Bank would issue as much as the late 
Bank, which is hardly possible, then the in¬ 
crease of circulation during the first five 
years would be about five millions—during 
the nextffte years about six millions. How 
much relief would this give ? What effect 
would it have on the price of property, and 
die wages of labor? We have now in cir¬ 
culation, probably, from seventy to one hun¬ 
dred millions of bonk paper, and forty mil¬ 


lions in specie: the ballance of the specie 
in the country being in the Banks, making 
about one hundred and ten, to one hundred 
and forty millions of circulation. 

These estimates of the amount of existing 
circulation, it is believed approximates cor¬ 
rectness. Yet by the proposed new bank, 
the amount of increase at the end of five 
years, will only be five millions or one twen¬ 
ty-second to one twenty-eighth added to 
the amount now in circulation. How ut¬ 
terly absurd to expect relief from a National 
Bank 1 If one were in full operation it could 
only add this small amount to the general 
circulation—so small that it would be scarce¬ 
ly felt. But it must be borne in mind that 
in establishing a new National Bank, there 
will be withdrawn from circulation the spe¬ 
cie on which it is based. This will dimin¬ 
ish the circulation for the time and unavoid¬ 
ably increase the pressure, at all events at 
the commencement of its operations. 

The increased circulation which such a 
bank would afford for the first five years, 
would be about thirty cents per head to the 
seventeen millions of people of the United 
States. If the circulation of the new bank 
were run up to twenty-three millions, the 
greatest amount ever circulated at any one 
time by the late bank of the United States, 
the proportion to each one of the people of 
the United States, would be about one dol¬ 
lar and thirty-five cents. It cannot be pos¬ 
sible that such an increase could bring relief 
to the debtor classes or any other portion of 
the people. In deference to the wishes of 
my competitor, I have thus reiterated my 
opinions and views on the subject of a Na¬ 
tional Bank; not that I believe there is the 
slightest prospect of establishing one, even 
though every man in Tennessee were in its 
favor. The elections which have taken 
place to the next Congress in eleven of the 
States, as well as other evidences of public 
opinion, abundantly show that the “idea” of 
establishing such an institution is indeed 
“obsolete.” Many of the former advocates 
of such an institution in other parts of the 
Union have given it up and abandoned it. 

JAMES K. POLK. 
Columbia, May 17, 1843. 

We find the subjoined sensible article in 
the Ohio Statesman. There is not a parti- 




<dc of humbug about it; it is made up entire¬ 
ly of facts and figures —which cannot lie— 
and as such we recommend it to the calm 
and deliberate attention of the reader,—E d. 
Appeal. 

OUR TRADE WITH GREAT BRITAIN 

Among the many false theories which are 
propagated by the friends of a high protec¬ 
tive tariff, there is, probably, none that has 
been of more service to them than that 
which represents a high tariff as necessary 
to enable us to trade with Great Britain up¬ 
on equal terms. Those who have imbibed 
this theory are continually asking, “why 
should we buy of Great Britain, when Great 
Britain refuses to buy of us? They suppose 
that the character of our trade with Great 
Britain, during the latter stages of the opera¬ 
tion of the compromise act, was such as to 
leave a constant balance against us; and 
they consider the tariff act of the late Coon 
Congress worthy of especial regard as a 
means of turning the balance in our favor. 

We now propose to show that these whig 
notions are entirely destitute of any just 
foundation, and our argument shall consist 
of actual, stubborn, and incontrovertible 
FACTS. 

Under the provisions of the compromise 
act, the tariff was in the lowest stages of its 
descent, during the five years from 1837 to 
1841, inclusive; and these are the years 
which would be named by the tariffitcs, if 
they were called upon to select the period 
in which they supposed our trade with Great 
Britain had been the most to our disadvan¬ 
tage. Never were men more egregiously 
misinformed. According to the annual of¬ 
ficial statements of the commerce of the 
United States, presented to Congress by the 
Secretary of the Treasury, our trade with 
„ Great Britain and her dependencies, during 
that period of a low tariff, was as follows: 


Years. 

Imports from 

B. Dominions. 

Exports to Br. 

Dominions. 

* 1857 

$52,289,557 

$61,117,791 

1838 

49,051,181 

58,843,392 

1839 

71,600,351 

68,168,082 

1840 

39,130,921 

70,420,846 

1841 

51,099,638 

62,376,402 

Totals, 

$263,171,648 | 

$320,926,513 

Subtract 

263,171,648 


Excess of exports $57,754*865 


It thus appears that, during the five year* 
of a low tariff, Great Britain actually took 
more of our goods and produce than we did 
of hers, to the enormous extent of FIFTY- 
SEVEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! Of 
this excess, forty-two millions were taken 
in the years 1840 and 1841, when the tariff 
was the lowest. Such facts aB these are 
perfectly irresistable. No honest man, who 
is made acquainted with them, will dare pre¬ 
tend that a high tariff is wanted in order to 
regulate our trade with Great Britain. 

The truth is, that Great Britain and her 
colonies have been accustomed to take more 
than half of the whole amount of our foreign 
exports. During the years above referred 
to, Ihe total amount of our exports to all the 
world, was six hundred millions of dollars, 
and, as is shown above, three hundred and 
twenty millions of it was to the British Do¬ 
minions. 

We will now see what was the character 
of our trade with Great Britain under a high 
tariff. The five years from 1828 to 1832, 
inclusive, are known to have been a period 
in which the tariff was the highest ever im¬ 
posed on the country. During those five 
years, it is shown by the official statements 
of the Secretary of the Treasury, that our 
trade with Great Britain and her dependen¬ 
cies, was as follows: 


Years. 

Imports from 

B. Dominions. 

Exports to Bri¬ 
tish Dominions. 

18*28 

$35,591,484 

$27,020,209 

1829 

27,582,082 

28,071,084 

1830 

26,804,984 

31,647,881 

1831 

47,956,717 

40,001,379 

1832 

42,406,924 

39,268,556 

Totals, 

$180,332,191 

$166,009,109 


Here is an excess of imports over exports 
amounting to fourteen millions of dollars.— 
The fact that there was this balance against 
us, under our highest tariff, is conclusive 
testimony against the whig theory. It 
proves that a high tariff has not that effect 
upon the balance of trade, which the whig* 
ascribe to it. 

It is sometimes urged by the friends of 
the protective system, that our wheat grow¬ 
ers derive no advantage from the British 
trade, because Great Britain refuses to take 
{heir wheat and flour. Suppose it to be true 
that she refuses our wheat and flour, have 
we any right to complain ? Does she do us 
any wrong by raising her own bread stuffs? 
But it is not true that she takes nothing 



















•from our wheat grower^, It appears from 
the same official statements which we have 
before quoted-, that, during the years 1839, 
’40 and ’41, the exports of wheat and flour, 
from the United States to the British Do¬ 
minions, were, in value, as follows: 

In 1839 ' - - -$3,718,080 

« 1840 - - 8,555,904 

“ 1841 - * 5,234,041 


Total in three years $17,508,825 
What think our farmers of this? Is it not 

v 

an item of some importance to them? Does 
it not show that they have a very considera¬ 
ble and direct interest in the British trade ? 

The facts that we have now presented are 
worth more than all the theories that whig- 
ge ry has ever invented; and, with every fair 
minded man, they will go far towards dis¬ 
posing of the whole tariff question’. Show¬ 
ing as they do, that Great Britain has been 
our most profitable customer when our ta¬ 
riff was the lowest, and that her trade was 
actually disadvantageous to us under our 
high tariff; they consequently show that, so 
far as she is concemened, we have great 
reason to prefer a low tariff to a high one. 
Such being the case in regard to Great Bri¬ 
tain, the high tariffites will find it hard to 
prove that it is not also the case, as to the 
rest of the world. 


From Kendall's Expositor 
A HOME MARKET. 

One of the delusive argunifents of the Tariff ad¬ 
vocates is, that it produces a Home Market: The 
meaning of this is that it increases the number of 
consumers of produce in comparison with the 
number of growers. 

Does it necessarily follow, that the increase of 
consumers is a good thing? If it be, why may not 
Congress pass an act to protect from distruction 
trows and black-birds, wolves and squirrels, rats and 
i mice ? They are very considerable Consumers 
without being producers. If consumption be a 
good thing, here is a way to dbtain it without cov¬ 
ering “the body politic” with “sores” in the 
shape of manufacturing cities. 

But, say the Tariff advocates, “ the inanufactur- 
ing operatives give us something in return .” Yes, 
at double prices. I have ten bushels of wheat which 
I wish to exchange for articles of clothing: What 
boots it to me whether the rats eat up half of it or 
it be taken from me by a tax on cotton, linen and 
woollen goods? Are not the rats just as good 
•onsumers as the manufacturers when they give 
me just as good a return? 

But if the government ought to legislate with a 
view to increase the proportion of consumers, 
there is a more effectual m<>dc: Fore c the manu¬ 


facturers to b-reak in pieces all their machinery of 
modern invention and resort to the primitive modes 
of spinning and weaving. They would then re¬ 
quire live hands, probably ten, for every one now 
employed, and thus make a most important addi¬ 
tion to the number of consumers. But, says the 
Tariff’ advocate, “that would greatly increase the 
price of goods : Very well; is not that th8 very 
end at which you aim by a Protective Tariff?— 
Aye but it would increase the cost of manufactur¬ 
ing them .” Ah, that explains your real motive: 
You want to increase the price of goods without 
increasing the cost of manufacturing them an’d 
thereby add to your profits. While you talk Of 
giving employment to laborer.;, increasing the 
number of consumers, making a home market for 
farmers, &c. &c., you are constantly introducing 
machines of iron, brass and wood which neither 
eat nor drink, to perform the work of men and 
women w/io do, and sending back your operatives 
to the occupations whence they came ; or as in Eng¬ 
land, turning them out to steal or starve! Yet, 
you call on the farmers and others to pay an enor¬ 
mous tax tb raise prices and make your machine la¬ 
bor profitable; to ‘ protect ” things of iron, brass 
and wood from competition with the “pauper la¬ 
bor” of Europe? 

What is the fact? Has the building up of Lowell 
| dr Nashua increased the prices of the farmer’s 
wheat or corn in Ohio, Indiana or Illinois? Every 
man knows better. Has it increased the prices of 
the farmer’s corn and rye raised in their very 
neighborhood? Every farmer 50 years old who lives 
there, knows better. He knows that their prices, 
thirty or forty years ago, were higher than they are 
now. Southern and western corn and flour have 
been brought, by means of these very manufactu¬ 
ring establishments, ii *o competition with those 
of the New England farmer, at his own door, redu¬ 
cing prices there without increasing them in thb 
regions whence the new supplies come. These 
are notorious fads —the strongest of arguments. 

To think of increasing the prices of western 
produce by building up manufacturers, and th 
increasing the number of domestic consumers, t 
as idle as to think of affecting the volume of t • 
Mississippi above or below by throwing the water 
over the levee at New Orleans with a bucket.- 
The production of that teeming region is t< ■ 
vast to be affected by an operation so minute. * 
The Mississippi must have an ocean to recei 
the waters of its innumerable fountains, and it* \ 
valley must have a world for a market. To crea , 
a home market for its production in New En ■* 
land or elsewhere by legislation, is just about 
ludicrous an operation as digging a home rese.* 1 
voir to receive the waters of its mighty rivers. 

As a man of the West we say to the Gener 
Government, clear out our Rivers, protect us fre 
piracy and war on the ocean, and give us the wor 
for a market. Do this, and in half a century, \ 
will show you results never surpassed in earth 
beauty and protectiveness, since God planted tu* 
first garden among the four rivers of Eden. 



















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